ABEJAR ® swarm Attractant Lure (paste)

01 · APPLICATION

A level tablespoon spread out, not a blob in one corner

The maker's dose is 10 g per bait hive, a level tablespoon, and what matters is how you spread it: a thin film over the inside walls and around the entrance, so the whole cavity smells of it. Not a thick lump in one corner: more product in the same spot won't bring more swarms. The 100 g jar covers about 10 bait hives. Top it up every 10-15 days through the season: if the film has gone from the walls, it's time to smear it on again.

02 · SITING

Halfway up a slope, entrance south, off the ground

The spot counts for as much as the lure. The maker asks for a sunny site on a swarm flight path, halfway up a slope, with the entrance facing south and the box 30-50 cm off the ground; a tree or a bank near the apiary will do. The useful window is the spring swarming season and early summer, when colonies divide and there are scouts out house-hunting.

03 · THE BAIT

The lure backs it up; what convinces a swarm is old comb

The instructions ask for it: one or more frames of used, healthy comb go inside. The smell of drawn comb tells the swarm a colony has lived there and saves it the hard work of starting from scratch; the lure reinforces that signal, it doesn't replace it. A set-up that works: a frame of old comb, one with pollen and two sheets of foundation to draw out. And one condition that isn't up for discussion: comb from a healthy colony. If the colony it came from died of an unknown cause, that frame doesn't go back out — reusing comb from a hive that had foulbrood seeds the disease in the very apiary you want to stock.

FROM THE APIARY

Once the season is over, take the old comb out of the trap. A comb left outdoors for months, with no bees to defend it, ends up eaten by wax moth: the bait turns into a problem inside your own kit.

04 · BEFORE YOU BUY

This is a lure, not a guarantee: it helps steer a swarm that is already house-hunting towards your box, but where no swarms pass, no jar will invent them. Check any swarm you catch before adding it to the apiary: it may come from a diseased colony or from swarmy stock.