Old hive box

[Deleted]

So I tried to get into bee keeping last year but ended up either killing my hive or did something wrong where they we to weak to fight off ants/wasps.  Now I'm looking for some info on what i can do with my old hive.  Currently their isn't any honey in it just some frames with pollen that is sealed up and some dead brood.  What do should I do if i wanted to have it set up on the off chance of catching a swarm?

Thanks

[Deleted]

It is a bit late in the season unless you are deep south to catch many swarms I wod wager. Most likely you are looking at setting it up as a swarm trap next spring. Simply put a few drops of lemon grass oil in the hive every few weeks from the First of April until the end of June or so. Small drops, a little goes a long way.

Unless you have several hive bodies, or nuc bodies and a bunch of brood comb, then you can set up several traps the same way to up your odds.

I set out 10 nucs as swarm traps this spring. I got swarms in 3 of them. Some years are better than others.

[hobbitlady]

As well as the lemongrass oil that I heartily agree about ,it is good to leave some old comb in there.Bees clean up just about anything when they move in and my understanding is that old comb is encouraging to them.I think that's why charmd2 said "simply" add lemongrass. I dab 2 drops on the back and sides of the hive body with a cotton ball. But I haven't done this for a trap myself,just started new packages hives that way (and they sure sounded Happy when they got in there). I do know that bees regularly move into old hives sitting around that were left abandoned. That happened to copperkid3 on a thread here.