A bee attractant which targets pome and stone fruit in South-East Australia has expanded to include new crops such as avocado, cherries and cucurbits and is currently being trialed on almonds.

Bee Klipp - which is designed to lure bees into and through flowering crops, improve their activity and achieve better pollination - is made from semi-permeable material and pays out across a period of about four weeks.

The active ingredients are high levels of naturally occurring floral odours that make it highly attractive to bees.

“Bee Klipp is a significant advancement over foliar applied bee attractants,” said David Loxley product manager at Bugs for Bugs.

“Foliar applied bee attractants have several deficiencies.

“They are prone to wash off and because the rate of release of the attractant is unregulated they dissipate quickly.

“This means subsequent applications are required to ensure the attractiveness to bees over the whole pollination period.”

Products such as Bee Klipp and its forerunner BeeString have enabled the attractive action to be extended and help ensure bee activity right through the blossom period.

“We needed to improve the way the product is positioned in trees. Bee Klipp development addressed both these issues. BeeString is no longer locally available.” Mr Loxley said.

“With Bee Klipp use the amount of active ingredient per ha has been increased and the release of floral odours is more intense across a longer period of time.

“The bees are attracted during the whole pollination period due to a more intense pay out of floral odour.”

According to Mr Loxley the bee attractant is easy to apply, is user friendly and importantly its efficacy is not affected by rain.

“The clip feature allows for positioning in the tree as you walk through the orchard.”

It is recommended that Bee Klipp is dispensed in the orchard a couple of days before hive placement to ensure the bees stay focused on the crop at hand.