queen pheromone, good or bad?

[Pi]

I have a nuc up a tree in an attempt to catch one of my own swams, if and when it happens.  I stapled an open tube of queen pheromone that I purchased from a beekeeping supplier.
My question is, does the pheromone make it more likely that swarming bees will ignore their flighted queen, and gather around the pheromone instead?  That is, could the queen be up another tree, and swam clustered around the pheromone?  Or doesn't it work that way?

I had a beauty of a swarm last year in a nuc with pheromone, but there was no queen after I took it down.

[BjornBee]

To the first part...No. I would not be concerned. It will not happen that way.

Your second part... is probably due to an afterswarm with a virgin queen. Once the swarm settles, within a day or two the queen leaves to mate. Then she gets killed, and you have a queenless swarm. I see a number of queenless swarms every year from that very thing happening.

[ArmucheeBee]

Bjorn

Are you saying they kill her?  Or she just gets killed while out clubing (nightclubing, for those slow to catch on)?  I can imagine that a swallow would really like to catch one on the wing!!

[BjornBee]

Bjorn

Are you saying they kill her?  Or she just gets killed while out clubing (nightclubing, for those slow to catch on)?  I can imagine that a swallow would really like to catch one on the wing!!

I'm saying she was killed out running around.... ;)

Of course you do have a few thousand angry ladies, with pent up frustration, all talking behind her back, jealousy running wild, and who knows what they conspire...  :roll: Afterall they are women... :-D

I'm sure a bird is the culprit.... :roll: