In this short instructional video, Laurence Edwards of Black Mountain Honey warns beekeepers against applying pure lemongrass oil directly to polystyrene beehives used as swarm traps. He demonstrates the chemical damage caused by the oil, showing a commercially available swarm lure versus pure lemongrass oil and highlighting how the oil melts the polystyrene. Edwards shares his personal mistake of over‑applying the oil, which led to extensive hive damage, and explains that a component in the oil reacts with the plastic. He then provides a safe alternative: apply the oil onto an absorbent material such as cotton wool, Jiffy pads, or cheap cloth, seal the material in a Ziploc bag (allowing the scent to permeate), and attach the bag to a frame inside the hive. The video also serves as the launch of the “Bite‑Sized Bees” series, promising sub‑two‑minute, focused beekeeping tips. Edwards ends with a call to subscribe and enable notifications.
Chapters
Hi, I'm Laurence Edwards from Black Mountain Honey. Welcome to another episode of No Nonsense Beekeeping. Today, this is going to be a very short video introducing a new series called Bite-Sized Bees. So in today's video, I'm going to tell you why you shouldn't use lemongrass oil when you're baiting up polystyrene beehives. So when it's swarm season, they say to use pure lemongrass oil when you're baiting your hives. All I'm going to show you in this video is the damage that lemongrass oil can do to polystyrene beehives. So I've taken 2 different formulas of swarm trap there. The one on your right is a, is a commercially available swarm lure, and then the one on your left is pure lemongrass oil. I'm just going to give you a few close-ups of that, and I want you to see the damage that pure lemongrass oil can do to polystyrene beehives. Now, I learned this the hard way. I used to bait my polystyrene beehives by going in and chucking loads of lemongrass oil around there. Didn't know what I was doing, thought that more was better, and I really damaged quite a lot of my polystyrene beehives by doing that. There is something in the lemongrass oil that reacts with the poly and it melts it down. So this is Bite-Sized Bees, and all I'm telling you is don't mix polystyrene beehives with lemongrass oil. So if you're looking to bait up a polystyrene beehive to use it as a swarm trap, what you want to do, get some cotton wool, something that's absorbent. Jiffy pads are quite good, or any of the cloths that you can get in the pound shop. Put your lemongrass oil directly onto the cloth, seal it up in a Ziploc bag. It can be completely sealed. The bees will smell straight through that, and then you can just attach that to a frame and put that into your beehive. Now, I'm not suggesting that any of you would be as stupid as I used to be and just chuck it around all over the place. But I just wanted to let you know that that is the damage that you can do to polystyrene beehives by putting on lemongrass oil. So I hope you enjoyed the first of a very new series called Bite-Sized Bees. We're going to try and keep the videos to under 2 minutes, give you key bits of information, but keep the duration of these videos down to an absolute minimum. So I hope you enjoyed watching. Please hit the subscribe button, please hit the bell so you're notified of every video, and I'll see you next time.
