Trap Lure? Lemongrass? Natural Pheromone? Artificial?

[Bill Dickerson]

Confused on Trap lures.

I see the Lemongrass lure discussed but does this simulate the natural swarm location pheromone or do the bees just like to get high on Lemongrass?

I see the natural pheromone but how is this created? Are there tiny little pheromone milkers?

Is there such a thing as an artificial pheromone? Crazed Lab Techs cooking it up in the bathroom?

[Michael Bush]

>I see the Lemongrass lure discussed but does this simulate the natural swarm location pheromone or do the bees just like to get high on Lemongrass?

It has most of the ingredients in approximate proportion to Nasonov pheromone.

>I see the natural pheromone but how is this created? Are there tiny little pheromone milkers?

Put your old queens in a jar of alcohol. When you have quite a few queens and the alcohol is getting darker, you can use that for swarm lure. It has queen pheromones in it (QMP, Tarsal etc.)

>Is there such a thing as an artificial pheromone? Crazed Lab Techs cooking it up in the bathroom?

You can just use Lemongrass oil or you can make your own with geraniol, nerolic acid, citral and geranic acid. Equal proportions will work, but 2:1 citral and gerniol is a pretty common recipe. I think lemongrass oil works just as well.