lemongrass oil alternative?

[wondervet]

Been meaning to get hold of some lemongrass oil for a while. to spray hives when uniting etc.

Is there nothing home-made that will do the job without tainting honey or poisoning the bees? dozens of aromatic plants available roundabout.

Ta v much

WV

 

[greatbritishhoney]

A sheet of newspaper?

 

[For want of a better word]

Rosemary & Thyme effusion in a dilute sugar solution.. and spray gently with an atomiser?

 

[jimbeekeeper]

Ok, maybe old spice it a bit OTT, but basically a strong sent to mask.

But I would just stick with a sheet of news paper.

 

[Cazza]

A sheet of newspaper?

I see a consensus appearing here.
Why bother spraying anything when newspaper does the job?
Cazza

 

[Finman]

I just put them together when the strength is 1:2.
I have several tricks in uniting. i do not use newspaper.

One is efficient. You put two nucs together. Put an extracted wet honeybox between nucs. no losses.

I loose sometimes a queen but I have spare queens enough.

I do not use concensus methods in my beekeeping. I decide myself what I am goig to do.

I make tens of joining every summer and I do not play game with them. I pile them together when I carry them to out pastures for main yield.
. If I have a valuable queen, I protect it or I make a nuc of its own and offer the queen later.

 

[mattsbees]

I'm interested in how you would use that??? My understanding was to use paper and use of lemongrass oil in swarm lures because it is familiar to the pheromone from the nasonov gland to orient home?

 

[Finman]

.
Sometimes I use nasonov feronome when I join colonies.
It is better that the strange part of bees did not have queen neaest 24 hours.

Then to add bees to another colony I let the bees become nervous. They suck the stomach full of honey. Then I shake the bees in front of hive. They are in the ground their time and they start to think, we cannot stay here longer, where is the home! They start to walk nervous and then I put some bees to the new entrance. They find the hive odor and start to ventilate with nasonov gland. More and more start that ventilation and they march in.

The master hive bees wonder, what is this gang which send a strong "home pheronome smell" . They are full of honey and they donate honey to master bees. When foreign bees get their nerves back, they may start to go after the queen and try to kill it. After half a hour I use to look, do they have something against the new queen.

 

[Pete Nicholson]

Mentor of mine uses lavender scented talcum powder - worked for me when introducing new queen. I trust this guy with my bees and he always surprises me with his wisdom and practicality.
Pete.

 

[mattsbees]

Wow finman that is a complicated concept to get one's head around! It is in the realms of artificial swarm techniques which I can't seem to understand all/ fully yet! Thanks for that anyway, most useful to know.

 

[Finman]

.
After years I use more natural systems that bees accept a new queen.

In queen rearing I use all the time same bees which hve reared the cells.
So it does not exists an accept situation. Nuc bees are rearers.

When it is time to move a laying queen to the final hive, I first try if they accept her at once and I put them walk on the comb.

Sometimes they denie to accept a new queen. So I wait 5 days that they cap their own queen cells.
When queencells have capped, bees accept what ever queen. Just need to wait..

Bees accept much more easier a queen which has layed 4 weeks than a queen which has layed 2 weeks.

Forcing to accept a queen has often a bad end. Antenna is missing, a leg is violated, a claws are missing from a leg. It takes time to notice that something is wrong.

 

[kighill]

I have used Lavender oil, place a few drops in a mister spray and simply spray over the bees.

Although I have only done this once It worked without any problems.

 

[wondervet]

Thanks all,

amazing what you get in response sometimes.

Finman are you writing a book some day? Put me down for a copy.