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BEEKEEPING LEARNING CENTER => GENERAL BEEKEEPING - MAIN POSTING FORUM. => Topic started by: rober on April 25, 2012, 10:08:42 AM

Title: queen pheremones
Post by: rober on April 25, 2012, 10:08:42 AM
in sarahm's thead about a dead queen dr.z mentioned putting the dead queen in alcohol to use as a pheremone lure. is the alcohol for making a tincture or to preserve the body? i have 2 queens that died in their cages. what would be the best way to use them for making a lure?
Title: Re: queen pheremones
Post by: Finski on April 25, 2012, 04:17:01 PM
Quote from: rober on April 25, 2012, 10:08:42 AM
in sarahm's thead about a dead queen dr.z mentioned putting the dead queen in alcohol to use as a pheremone lure. is the alcohol for making a tincture or to preserve the body? i have 2 queens that died in their cages. what would be the best way to use them for making a lure?

i put 5 queens in a 100 ml 40% alcohol and it had no lure meaning.  Waste of good alcohol.
Title: Re: queen pheremones
Post by: rober on April 25, 2012, 04:22:31 PM
what if you ground up the queens & put them some coconut butter or vaseline petroleum jelly to make a paste?
Title: Re: queen pheremones
Post by: forrestcav on April 25, 2012, 05:16:05 PM
went a little overboard with the alcohol didn't you finski? I would more like 10-20 ml of alcohol would be more like it
Title: Re: queen pheremones
Post by: D Coates on April 25, 2012, 05:19:41 PM
I don't think it would taste good at all.   :-P  Seriously, you could do it but I'm not sure if that would be a good or bad smell for the bees.  I had over a dozen dead queens in a small jar of alcohol.  Inadvertently I left on a shelf next to my little bottle of lemon grass oil while extracting.  I was pleased to see the stragglers clustering around the queens until I realized more of them were clustering around lemongrass oil.  I used that alcohol mixture in my swarm traps all last year with no success.

After almost 2 years it dried out this winter and I threw it away.  I'll keep using my lemongrass oil.  Ironically I've already caught a swarm in the trap this year using the oil.  Is it a direct corelation?  No, but like Finski I had no luck with trying the queen in alcohol.  I've found it easier to stick with the lemongrass.  
Title: Re: queen pheremones
Post by: FRAMEshift on April 25, 2012, 08:02:22 PM
The point of the alcohol is to extract queen mandibular pheromone from the bodies of the queens.  I put all my dead/excess queens in a small jar (20ml) of vodka to try to get as concentrated a mix of QMP as possible.  I use the QMP and lemongrass oil in swarm traps.  And both the QMP and the lemongrass oil stay refrigerated.
Title: Re: queen pheremones
Post by: rober on April 25, 2012, 08:23:01 PM
i've used alcohol to make tinctures out of herbs. a tincture of goldenseal will heal cuts & abrasions faster than anything you'll find in a drugstore. i would think the smell of alcohol would overpower the smell of the queen. i'll experiment with vodka & see whar happens. the smell of a queen would likely draw out a queen in a hive if you were looking for her.
Title: Re: queen pheremones
Post by: Michael Bush on April 26, 2012, 02:50:24 AM
I have a jar of old queens in alcohol.  The alcohol gets dark after a while.  I don't grind them, I just drop them in to dispose of them.  A few drops is pretty much irresistible to a swarm.  Combined with Lemongrass Essential oil in an old box it is pretty reliable at luring a swarm out of a tree.
Title: Re: queen pheremones
Post by: AliciaH on April 26, 2012, 11:46:11 AM
I put some queens in alcohol last summer and will try using it this summer. 

But vodka?  Seems to me there's a much, much better use for that...  ;)