new product idea for candles

[Vinman]

Not sure if my idea is marketable.
Home gardeners often wish to attract bees to their small orchards during pollenation season.
I read that in the old days people used to track beehives by burning honey, and bees would come.
They could then rob the beehives once they track the bees back home.

What if one were to burn a beeswax candle with some honey content in the wax. The only challenge might be to have to wax cool without separating from the honey since it normally separates.

[Michael Bush]

>I read that in the old days people used to track beehives by burning honey, and bees would come.
They could then rob the beehives once they track the bees back home.

I haven't heard that. I've heard several other versions with honey or other bait set out to beeline from.

I'd just buy some Lemongrass essential oil. I've never seen it fail to bring in some investigators. Try putting a bit on a piece of wood in your garden and I bet some bees show up. But that doesn't mean they will pollenate your garden. The foragers may already have a good source of nectar somewhere.

If you want to spend a bit more, buy some BeeBoost from Mann Lake or one of the other suppliers. It's QMP and it always seems to bring some investigators also. Or buy some of the swarm lure. It also will bring some bees.

If you really want your garden pollenated you'd be better off to put a small hive there. If you have a particular crop you want pollenated, you'd be better off to keep the hive somewhere else and put the hive there right after that crop blooms.

[Jim Fischer]

> I read that in the old days people used to track
> beehives by burning honey, and bees would come.
> They could then rob the beehives once they track
> the bees back home.

While this has been said and written in old texts,
I have been unable to make this technique work in
4 seasons of trying, even when no more than a few
hundred feet from 20-40 hives.

Of course the smell of a full-blown uncapping
and extracting operation will attract bees to
the screen windows, but smaller amounts of
warm/hot wax and warm honey don't seem to have
the same drawing power.

"Attracting bees" for pollination purposes has
been tried over and over, without success.
The concept is so tempting, someone will try
another approach every few years.