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  • General Q&A, Bee chat and only Bee chat please
General Q&A, Bee chat and only Bee chat please
 #8585  by Dolly
 26 Aug 2020, 12:11
Hi again
What is anyone's opinion on feeding ripe bananas to your bees :?:
 #8587  by Chrisbarlow
 26 Aug 2020, 12:12
A new one on me,

Why?
 #8588  by huntsman.
 26 Aug 2020, 12:48
Hi Dolly.

This prompted me to do a very quick web search on the subject.

Seems this started from an instagram post and then taken up by many.

For my part, I think I'll wait until I see them trying to bring a banana into a hive. ;)
Last edited by huntsman. on 26 Aug 2020, 13:39, edited 1 time in total.
 #8589  by Steve 1972
 26 Aug 2020, 13:27
I thought bananas mimics the attack pheromone smell which can make bees defensive..not 100% but I am sure I have read something on that subject.
 #8591  by Chrisbarlow
 26 Aug 2020, 13:47
Steve 1972 wrote:
26 Aug 2020, 13:27
I thought bananas mimics the attack pheromone smell which can make bees defensive..not 100% but I am sure I have read something on that subject.
This article here from 2013 suggests the same Steve,

One might think that this scent is a special, unrecognizable, and impossible-to-synthesize bee smell. Actually, it smells a lot like bananas. Beekeepers are advised to keep from using hair or skin produces that are banana scented, and even keep from eating bananas just before they go out to tend their bees. When one inexperienced bee keeper had bananas for breakfast and then tried to stock a hive wit the bees she had ordered, the insects poured out and went straight for her, stinging her through her veil and her jeans.


https://io9.gizmodo.com/how-to-murder-someone-with-bananas-and-also-bees-460444715


a blog here from 2007 suggests the same.

Never eat bananas prior to working your hives. Some suggest the odor of a banana can mimic the smell of another queen and cause the hive to become alarmed.


http://basicbeekeeping.blogspot.com/2007/10/inspecting-hive-part-1.html
 #8592  by Chrisbarlow
 26 Aug 2020, 13:58
and an information sheet from 2001 from Arizona state university compares the sting pheromone to a banana smell.

This alarm pheromone smells like bananas and attracts other bees to come to the defense of the hive.

https://cals.arizona.edu/pubs/insects/ahb/inf6.html

I think the question still stands though, why add it in the first place?

As the question might still warrant the addition of a banana to your colony
 #8594  by NigelP
 26 Aug 2020, 17:41
Chrisbarlow wrote:
26 Aug 2020, 13:58

I think the question still stands though, why add it in the first place?
Banana or Banana skin added on top of the frames of a hive in spring was thought to cure Chalk brood. The fact that chalk brood is often a short lived affair occurring in damp springs that naturally disappears as the weather warms and dries up was neither here nor there. It was the banana that cured it :)....except in chronic cases where it obviously didn't....and then you really need to re-queen to a chalk brood resistant type. When I kept Amm's they were martyrs to chalkbrood.
Of course we should also be adding rhubarb leaves over the frames as they are full of oxalic acid And will kill varroa /wry sly grin/

Beekeepers and their little foibles......
 #8595  by AndrewLD
 26 Aug 2020, 17:43
Stupid idea, what next!

But hey, if you are a masochist and want to provoke the bees, why not! Just expect them to leave at the first opportunity.
 #8601  by NigelP
 26 Aug 2020, 18:23
2-heptanone is the bee alarm pheromone that smells like bananas. Bananas themselves don't contain 2-heptanone so don't create alarm in bees...
Yet another bee keeping fallacy that they do.
 #8604  by AndrewLD
 26 Aug 2020, 19:01
That is very specific, I think too specific, but if I could use an analogy.
A farmer can spread cowshit or human waste and both smell appalling while it lasts. Just because the chemical formula is different doesn't mean they like bananas.
I like your idea of rhubarb leaves better.