FATAL ATTRACTION

Bob’s Honeycomb

I’m experimenting with using a non toxic waterproofer for cheap builds such as cardboard tubing. My neighbour who keeps honey bees gave me a tray from one of his hives that has natural wax, permeated with bee droppings, propolis and other debris. When melted into a ball it cooled and immediately my reaction was that it is immensely strong (& hard) in its natural unprocessed state. It’s obvious that once bees find my tubes it attracts other bees, whether that is by pheromones or other physical signals I don’t know. As Bee keepers sometimes use pheromones as an attractor agent in their hives, my experiment is to dip the end of my tubes, alongside a build with non dipped tubes (to act as a control). This will perhaps give me an indication of whether solitary bee species are either attracted to repelled from tubes which are dipped in natural unprocessed bees wax.

Wax ball

Roughly filtered