TempQueen QM 5 pack

01 · WHAT THE COLONY READS

Not a queen smell: five molecules in a fixed ratio

The QMP in the tube is a precise blend of five substances —9-ODA, both isomers of 9-HDA, HOB and HVA— in the ratio of a living queen. The impregnated plastic releases it slowly and the workers spread it by contact, as they would licking the queen. That is why the lure hangs in the middle of the nest and not in a corner: it needs bees around it to spread.

02 · WHEN IT GOES IN

It goes in the day you dequeen, not the day after

QMP holds workers back from starting queen cells, but it does not stop the ones already under way. Put it in when the hive has been queenless for two or three days and has already drawn cells, and the bees carry on with them. So it should go in during the same handling in which the queen is removed or lost, not on the next visit: the sooner it is in, the fewer cells you find later. The maker sets no deadline; this is a handling call.

03 · WHAT THE LURE WILL NOT DO

It replaces the queen's scent, not her laying

Not one egg is laid while it is in, so the population is not renewed and a queenless unit goes downhill from day one. And on its own the pheromone holds back worker ovary activation less well than open brood or a real queen: in a broodless unit laying workers can still appear with the lure in place. It is a three-week bridge, out the day you introduce the queen.

04 · FROM FEBRUARY TO JUNE

The season for splits and mating nucs

Sales run from February to June, peaking in May: the season for splits and mating nucs. One lure per nuc as you set it up or add the cell, so it keeps its bees while the virgin flies out to mate. The handling is short: cable tie round the tube, thumbtack into the top bar of the central frame, gloves so you do not taint it. Spares go back in the freezer in an airtight bag, below 0 °C.

05 · BEFORE YOU BUY

The bag holds five lures and their cable ties —five applications, not five packs— and the thumbtack that pins them to the frame is yours to supply. It hangs from the top bar, so it suits any hive or nuc with movable frames. And what it is not: not a Nasonov swarm lure —though the maker does document hanging one inside the box to hold the stragglers once the swarm itself has been collected—, and no rescue for a colony already gone to laying workers.