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Long before chemical attractants, people used use some home-made potion that included sour milk and some other additives.
It smelt as if rotten wood and was used in the swarm traps.
I read this recently in one of swarm trapping video comments (some old beekeeper grandma taught someone about trapping).
So - bees apparently are attracted by rotten wood smell.
Today I refreshed one of my log hives.
Last year I put them out kind of late and made few mistakes as I now feel.
Done:
- removed solid plastic frames - the black ones on the pic (in case they are negative factors);
- just stapled in top bars in place of the removed (there is a burlap inner cover over the bars)
- taped in black combs into the white plastic cut-outs
- plugged in the screen bottom with folded and well propolised burlap (I think the open mesh bottom was a mistake; unsure what was I thinking last summer).
- stuffed some slum gum into unintended holes
This trap, while still solid, has some promising wood rot and fungus setting in there and here.
Ants and spiders are crawling all over too.
The trap is on a smaller side - ~30 liters.
Fingers crossed.
It smelt as if rotten wood and was used in the swarm traps.
I read this recently in one of swarm trapping video comments (some old beekeeper grandma taught someone about trapping).
So - bees apparently are attracted by rotten wood smell.
Today I refreshed one of my log hives.
Last year I put them out kind of late and made few mistakes as I now feel.
Done:
- removed solid plastic frames - the black ones on the pic (in case they are negative factors);
- just stapled in top bars in place of the removed (there is a burlap inner cover over the bars)
- taped in black combs into the white plastic cut-outs
- plugged in the screen bottom with folded and well propolised burlap (I think the open mesh bottom was a mistake; unsure what was I thinking last summer).
- stuffed some slum gum into unintended holes
This trap, while still solid, has some promising wood rot and fungus setting in there and here.
Ants and spiders are crawling all over too.
The trap is on a smaller side - ~30 liters.
Fingers crossed.


