What good is knowledge if you don’t apply it? Since I’ve learned more about how to attract honey bee swarms using bait hives and swarm lures, I decided to try it while there might still be some swarms coming out. I got some help from Oshige san (Shoichi Ito’s secretary). I asked her to help me find a store in Fukuoka that sells essential oils–specifically lemongrass essential oil. She did the internet search on her computer (in Japanese) and found a store in Tenjin (the business district of Fukuoka). I stopped by there on the way home from my office and found the store and they had what I was looking for. I bought 3 ml of lemongrass essential oil for 630 yen (about $6.30 USD).
Also on my way home I stopped at Teruo Shiki’s house and picked up my top bar hive that I had been keeping there and brought it home on the back of my bicycle. I put a couple of drops of lemongrass oil on the end of a Q-tip, snipped off the end with a pair of scissors, and stapled my “lure” to the inside bottom of one of the center top bars. I also dabbed some honey on the inside wall of the hive box. This hive box has had bees in it before, so it should have some “bee smell” in it already. Lemongrass oil contains geraniol and citral, two components of the honey bees’ Nasanov gland pheromone used for orientation. Many people have reported success attracting swarms when using it in their bait hives.
I haven’t seen any honey bees in the local area around where I live this year, but there may possibly be some. I wanted to put a bait hive out at the Ito Campus of Kyushi University because I see a lot of western honey bees working the white clover every time I go there, but it takes time and is difficult to do something like that on a college campus because administrators and staff are concerned about danger and liability (I suppose) and it requires official approval to be able to do it. I might put one on the veranda of one of the students who lives in the freshman dormitory on campus there since I would then only need to have his permission. I would go and pick it up right away if a swarm moves in. I’m still thinking about whether to do that or not, but leaning toward doing it. I might pursue getting permission to put another one in a better location while already placing one on his veranda. He lives on the 7th floor of a 10 story building. Every apartment has an outdoor veranda, and there is only one person per apartment.
So much for now.