The "Come Hither" Allure of Lemongrass Oil and Nasty Water

I've been out of town all weekend and returned to a bright, warm sunny day in Atlanta. I noticed at least three bees drawn to the allure of my lemongrass oil slick wiped on the landing deck as well as the frames and inner cover of the hive I've set out as a swarm lure. I don't know if these are simply the bees from my two hives on the deck who are curious or if they are scouts from a swarm in the making. I took at least 20 pictures to get these two and they aren't very good, but at least you can see the curious bees.

Bee curiosity is demonstrated in their flight into the hive. A bee who lives in a hive literally makes a beeline for the landing and goes without hesitation into the front opening unless there's a crowd on the landing. When a bee is looking at a hive that she doesn't belong to, she approaches the front by flying up and hovering watchfully, often several times before she lands and goes into the hive. (Robber bees often exhibit the same caution before entering).

Notice the darker area on the landing - this is where I spread the lemongrass oil/beeswax/olive oil spread that I made to act as a lure.

I also found bees in this nasty water collected in last year's flower pot. Over the weekend there was a tornado in Atlanta (not near my house) and lots of rain. Before this weekend, there was collected water in the top of this pot but the dead plant life provided a place for the bees to land. If you look at 12:00 in the pond-lake, you'll see a dead bee.
Upon observing this, I felt a need to provide them with a better landing place and put a broken stick in the pot that you can see in the close-up shot in the last picture.

Spring is Coming - Invitation to a Swarm

Both of my hives were very active today. Outside of Bermuda, the young bees started orientation as soon as the temperature reached 50 degrees (around 2 PM) and continued for about 2 hours. Mellona was almost as busy, although it is a smaller hive.


Last year I had an empty box standing on its side on the deck and a small swarm moved in without my even realizing it until I moved the box. I'd prefer to attract a swarm to a good, warm, well-equipped place to live.

So I put a hive body out on the deck on concrete blocks. It's a 10 frame deep, and I'm trying to move to all 8 frame medium boxes so in theory this is a box I wouldn't use for anything else this year. Even the nucs that I will be getting in April (which will come on deep frames), I'll put into deep 8 frame boxes. So if a swarm doesn't make this box it's home, I still won't be missing this piece of equipment.

Originally (in an earlier post), I described put drops of lemongrass essential onto an old hive body with a cover to try to encourage a swarm to move in. BeeHappy commented that the odor of the essential lemongrass oil will last longer if I made an oil paste to put on the frames instead.

So I did that today. If you click on the picture below, you can go to the slide show and see the process full screen:


Now let's hope a wandering swarm finds this lovely place to live and moves into it.

The Lure of Lemongrass Oil

Today I got home from the mountains to find it sunny and warm in Atlanta - perfect weather to open the hives. I opened Bermuda to find it bubbling over with bees. The brood has been mostly in the bottom box, but today they are also raising brood in the second box. They had eaten all the sugar syrup I left them last weekend. I wanted to check on the brood situation and to open up the brood space while in Bermuda. I removed several frames from the brood box and spread out the brood with an empty frame between frames 2 and 3 and another between frames 7 and 9.

I then did a powdered sugar shake - the bees grumbled in a bee-way by buzzing and flying around. You can see how much they have to clean off by looking at the bees in the above picture.
In Mellona there wasn't quite as much activity and there are fewer bees. They too had eaten all of the sugar syrup I had provided. I made some at 3 PM before going out to the hives at 4 PM. It was still warm but I put some in a Ziploc bag, laid it on the top box and slit the bag. I don't think the fact that it is still warm will be an issue. After all the bees like to be in the 90s themselves.

I noticed some drone cells being made in each of the two hives. With spring coming soon, the girls are ready for some males in the picture to mate with queens, should a hive need to make their own queen.
While working on the bee hives, I thought I might try to lure a swarm. I have an empty deep on the deck. Today I lifted out each frame and shook off a few dead roaches who had wintered there. The hive has a few frames with starter strips and mostly drawn out brood comb. There are a few plastic based foundations and some with none. I used lemongrass oil (this is an effective lure for swarms, according to Michael Bush and others on Beesource and Beemaster) and dropped about 10 drops on the center 5 frames. For good measure I put a few drops at the entrance as well.

Swarm season will be on us in March so I want my bee hive to be an appealing place, should a swarm come along. I love it that on the bottle of lemongrass oil, there is the word: INSPIRING. Let's hope the oil draws a swarm and INSPIRES it to live on my deck!