lures

[rober]

I've read & heard that by putting your used queens in alcohol you can make a bee lure. I've done this & put some on top of hives & the bees showed zero interest in it. 
also-I started several nucs using queen cells. once they were up & running while checking them as I removed burr comb & the queen cups the bees were all over those queens cups. i'm thinking about trying using those for a lure.

[neillsayers]

Sounds like a good idea Rober.

[rober]

i'll let y'all know if it works. I wonder why they're not attracted to my pickled queen juice?

[apisbees]

How many queens did you run through the alcohol wash it takes quite a few queens to get a strong enough concentration of pheromones.

[rober]

the 1st batch which was the one I tried probably had 25 queens a 4oz. jar of alcohol. would the pheromones linger on the queen cups?

[apisbees]

I"m not sure but something attracts the first emerged queen to the other cells so she can tear them open to kill the developing queen inside. The queen will tear down cells that are a few days away from emerging but she doesn't tear down queen cups with developing queen larva inside.
How much alcohol

[rober]

3.5oz.

[Riverrat]

an old frame culled out of the boxes and a little lemon grass oil from health food store has worked the best for my traps.

[Mikey N.C.]

Same here RR.  My first yr. I did crush an strain,  after all honey was strained.  I took wax and put in a ss colander in a 13×9 pyrex dish,  to melt off wax in oven.  What's left in colander is a dark goo (slumgum)  it gets hard like wax.  I put this in a zip- lock bag.  When I build new boxes and swarm boxes,  i heat in microwave until soften,  and rub on inside of box.  It has honey and old wax smell. It worked in swarm box last year with lemon grass oil straw,  hoping it works this year.

[rober]

I am aware of other lures. I was just curious as to why they were not attracted to my pickled queen juice after reading that it's supposed to attract bees. my current batch is 2.5oz of alcohol & 16 queens.

[Mikey N.C.]

Rober,

I don't have enough experience to say, i have 6 dead Q's in a jar. Haven't try yet.

[Lburou]

the 1st batch which was the one I tried probably had 25 queens a 4oz. jar of alcohol. would the pheromones linger on the queen cups?

I doubt it rober.  The QMP (queen mandibular pheromone) isn't produced until about a day after the queen hatches.  Small amounts initially, then increasing until the third and subsequent days.

I believe the real pheromone that is attractive to bees is the nasonov pheromone.  Brood pheromones (in brood comb), and the nasonov pheromone (very similar to lemongrass oil or LGO) are the greater attractants for swarms.  The QMP from your queens doesn't hurt on top of that. 

[rober]

I know that when i'm installing queens wherever I set a caged queen 5-30 bees will linger on that spot for days. i have some nucs that were started with queen cells that were grafted. when i removed the cups after those queens hatched the bees were attracted to those cells. i forgot & left some on top of the hives & it rained & after that they ignored them so if there were any pheromones in them they must have been in trace amounts. the ones that weren't rained on are still attracting bees.  i reused some of those cups as an experiment & the bees would use those cups 1st compared to the new cups. it could be because of the bits of comb that are still on them.

[CBT]

Rober I thought you had to crush the queens to made a lure.

[Jen]

Really good thread Rober, I'm learning some interesting stuff