you probably wont get that lucky again!
good job though.
they must not have had enough room to set up shop in the bricks.
did you use old brood comb in the bait hive or just lemon grass oil?
bailey
I bet you're right Bailey! Thx.
I'm sort of puzzled what it is about the brick chimney they didn't like myself. It seemed the
perfect hive but who knows what's inside there. Maybe it is more exposed than it would seem as well. No bees had set up there before (& the house is ~ 20 years old) and then there were the dozens of chilled ones outside.
100% old brood comb (8 frames), one or two with some capped honey at the perimeter, all sprayed with some 1:1 syrup w/a drop of lemongrass oil diluted within.
I'll take lucky when I can get it.
Onwards - occurred to me today that networking with arborists is likely a really good way to increase one's swarm calls. I guess that's obvious. I wasn't looking to do more but had one company at my place today getting an estimate for insurance claim together on a
recently fell tree @ my apiary who got excited when he saw all the hives. They encounter them fairly often and he's got one in a hollowed out elm (about 16' up) that they topped recently. The property owner wants to try and save (as opposed to just kill) these ones prior to having the tree fully removed. Sounds interesting.
Cheers,
Dane
