RSSI remember, the first time I saw a bee box (or bee lining box), I was fascinated by all of its chambers (this one has two, others have three), lifts, sliding doors, windows, etc. It's like something a magician might flourish onstage. But it's not. It's used for hunting and capturing wild bees and using the captured ones to follow them back to the hive (a lost art called "bee lining").
More info on bee lining in general can be found here.
[Thanks to MAKE subscriber, and bee liner, Rick of 2wicky, for sending us his video.]
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What is the point of this? There is no purpose of capturing the bees in some intricate box. Just leave your sugar water out near some flowers where you see bees and they will find it eventually. Mission accomplished, with no need for a bee box.
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The reason the box works better than an open dish, is that by collecting and releasing several bees at once, you are effectively "spamming" the hive with information about a rich food supply in a short period of time.
When those ten bees arrive, almost simultaneously, each of them will relay the information of her find with the "bee dance" (seriously).
This is much more likely to cause a substantial number of bees to start a path to and from your location than an occasional and sporadic trickle of bees from an open feeding dish.
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