# Growing Lemongrass?



## The7Cs (Apr 25, 2005)

I had this strange idea. I see that lemongrass is grown normally in the tropics, but some is cultivated in England. I'm curious if anyone had considered attempting to grow lemongrass in the USA.

The ultimate goal would be, since lemongrass oil is used as an attractant in swarm traps, to try to make my rural property attractive to swarms. Do you think it would work? Would it be worth the attempt?

Unfortunately, I don't know that there are a lot of hives around, so I'm likely only going to catch my own swarms. How far will they scout for a new location?


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## COUNT ZERO (Apr 8, 2005)

My local plant nursery sells lemongrass. I would guess it is grown as an annual up here. I will find out for sure. Most herbs need to be bruised or crushed to emit a fragrance. I'm sure you could crush it and use it in your swarm traps. As to whether the growing plant would attract bees I'm unsure.

Brian


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>I had this strange idea. I see that lemongrass is grown normally in the tropics, but some is cultivated in England. I'm curious if anyone had considered attempting to grow lemongrass in the USA.

I have a friend here that grows it.

>The ultimate goal would be, since lemongrass oil is used as an attractant in swarm traps, to try to make my rural property attractive to swarms.

It won't make the propety attractive to swarms, but if you crush it and rub it on the inside of a hive it will make the hive attractive to swarms. They bees are looking for a home and the nasonov pheromone smell attracts them to check it out, plus it's what the scouts mark it with to atrract the swarm. They are not looking for a field that smells like nasonov. 

>Unfortunately, I don't know that there are a lot of hives around, so I'm likely only going to catch my own swarms.

And that's a bad thing? They were going somewhere, why not one of your boxes instead of the woods?

>How far will they scout for a new location?

Several miles, but they seem to prefer closer locations if they can find them.


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## dcross (Jan 20, 2003)

It hasn't survived the last two winters here, but my bee balm does quite well, and the crushed leaves are supposed to be attractive to bees as well. I'm not sure which pheromone they mimic.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

Does it smell lemony?


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## dcross (Jan 20, 2003)

<<Does it smell lemony?>>


Not at all, more like thyme. 

I've searched around a bit, and some sites say lemon balm(melissa officinalis) used to be called bee balm and was used to attract swarms.

But what I have is monarda didyma, and the only thing I can find now is a reference to a high geraniol content in the purple version of it. I think I've seen a swarm lure recipe with that in it.

Oh well, maybe I'll keep investing in another clump of lemongrass every year after all


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## jim b (Oct 3, 2004)

I was reading somewhere that lemongrass can be found at Asian markets as a seasoning. I seem to recall that it is purchased as fresh and can be taken home and planted as it is.
There were two species they refered to, one quite tropical, the other more temporate. If i can find the info, i'll let you know.
jim


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

Well gerinoil is one of the three principle constituents so maybe it would work.


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## Beemaninsa (Jun 9, 2004)

Lemon Grass grows great in my area. Looks like pampas grass, only smaller. Smells wonderful when crushed. Good to cook with in soup and stir fry etc. I had excellent results this year using lemon grass as a swarm lure.


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## Trebor (May 29, 2005)

we use to grow Lemon Grass when I lived in WV but it had a hard time, even in a heated greenhouse in the winter, though we didn't keep it real hot, but it didn't freeze either freezing killed it!!!!!


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## Beemaninsa (Jun 9, 2004)

My lemon grass has survived 3 years. Freeze took it to the ground but it has come back in the spring.


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## jim b (Oct 3, 2004)

Sorry,i dont know how to add a link. I searched Yahoo for lemongrass and went to the site for taofarms and went to herbs. Somehow i got to a page with better info than can be found there even though it's the same website. It was stated that the fresh herb could be rooted in water for a few weeks prior to planting. If i can get abit educted, i'll post the link. jim


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## Elsbeth (Jun 9, 2005)

It's quite funny that lemon balm's scientific name is melissa officinalis, because Melissa means "honey bee" in Greek. Nifty.


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## Darrel Wright (Jun 30, 2004)

My wife grows lemon grass in a large pot here in NE Ohio and we just bring it inside in the winter. It looks nice through January but gets a little ratty by spring, but will come back strong when it goes back outside. For swarm lures, I'm sure a single pot would produce more than enough.


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## Sundance (Sep 9, 2004)

Here's a link to lemon grass essential oil.....

it's number 87 $12.99 for 100 ml or $54.00 for a liter in case you really want to spread it around. I ordered a kilo of thymol from here.... have yet to get it though.

http://www.everydayhenna.com/oils.html


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## scsasdsa (Jan 23, 2004)

Lemon Balm does smell lemony when crushed and winters here in Vermont (zone4)use alcohol to make extract or distill to make oil.


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## Tors (Jan 6, 2006)

My wife had a upset stomach today when we went out for breakky, so she ordered a pot of lemmon grass tea, we were sitting out in the summer sun in Melbourne....we had 2 bees around the pot in about 5 minutes!!!!!.

[ February 06, 2006, 02:06 AM: Message edited by: Tors ]


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## SantaCruzBee (Apr 23, 2004)

I have lemon grass and it grows pretty well on the Central Coast in California. I live in an Apple district and we get frosts here, but it rarely goes to or below 28F and only for a few hours at most. With the coldest temps I've had the lemon grass looks a little fried around the edges, but it's still quite vigorous. Is lemon grass used in the comercial lures, or is it actually a synthetic version of Nasonov hormone that's used?


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>Is lemon grass used in the comercial lures, or is it actually a synthetic version of Nasonov hormone that's used? 

I don't know for sure if they actually use the lemongrass oil, but that's what it smells like and the lemongrass oil seems to work just as well.


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## SantaCruzBee (Apr 23, 2004)

Thanks Michael. This year I'll give it a try instead of the commercial lures as an experiment. Since I'm just a hobbyist it isn't crucial if I succeed with lemon grass or not, but it'll be interesting if I do.


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## Darrel Wright (Jun 30, 2004)

I've used it SCB. I had two traps last year and came up with my first swarm ever in the one that had nothing but lemon grass rubbed in it. The other one had both lemon grass and bee-balm.

I think the smell probably fades faster than the commercial offerings. I re-rubbed every two or three days.


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## SeaCucumber (Jun 5, 2014)

If wikipedia, and this dude's abstract are correct, you might be better off growing Melissa officinalis. That would give you the citral that wikipedia says is in nasonov. Wikipedia says that (E)-citral is geranial.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21809949
If this is right: (E)-citral (37.2%), neral (23.9%),
then citral is 61.1% (the sum of these isomers).

According to this guy: http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/292/#b the stuff can tolerate -34 Celsius.


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## Dave A. (Mar 13, 2015)

I love Zombie threads 

:banana:


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## Scpossum (May 4, 2014)

I'm trying to get some started right now. We have a friend from Indonesia and she cooks with lemongrass all the time. Shrimp wrapped in lemongrass and grilled on a stick is great!


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## Fetustician (Feb 23, 2015)

We grow lemongrass here in middle TN. Very easy. We get the stems from our Asian food store (they kind of look like fibrous and thin leek ), make a 6" hole with the spade, pull the dirt to the side like for planting a sapling, stick the lemongrass in it stomp on the dirt and water. It grows pretty big! Easier to replant every year then to try to keep it alive. At the end of the season we cut it to the ground and pulp the white part that we freeze in ice cube trays. We have not used the green part of the leaves maybe we can keep for the bees !


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## Rob Fischer (Dec 17, 2014)

Rubbed some of my lemongrass in a hive Friday just before catching a swarm. It seems to have helped entice them to stay.


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## jadebees (May 9, 2013)

Much of the commercial swarm lure is made with lemongrass oil. It contains the same ester & fatty acid as home scent. Some species of lemon grass are better than others. Look for Cymbopogon Flexiosus. Commercial products are tested to ensure high enough geraniol content. Research shows no advantage comes from trying to duplicate the 7 esters in Nasanov. Just lemongrass, and 2 or 3 drops of citronella & geranium oil per fluid ounce. Mine works much better than some I bought, mine's not diluted. I have been making it for years.


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## soarwitheagles (May 23, 2015)

My wife grows the lemon grass here in California for most of the year. It grows like a weed, fast and strong. But lemon grass here in zone 9b must be either covered during the frost, or brought inside, otherwise it can die very quickly...

BTW, it makes incredible cool summer drinks if you boil it and add a little sugar...


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## JWChesnut (Jul 31, 2013)

Jade Bees provides solid information.
The compounds geraniol, citral, nerol are very similar chemically (and very simple chains). They differ in whether they are an alcohol (an OH group termination), an aldehyde (a double bonded O atom as termination). These differences may have more to do with how persistent the odor is, how quickly it evaporates, than in functional differences in the detection of the scent. viz: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geraniol They are ubiquitous in plants (pines possess an extractable quantity). 

Geraniol may be obtained from a multitude of sources. Not mentioned in this thread is Pelagonium graveolens (the "rose geranium" houseplant) which forms the backbone of the commercial "rose of attar" perfume industry (as a low cost alternative to rose of damascene petals).

Many species of the lemongrass genus are fragrant. Palmarosa oil (a perfumery) is sourced in Cymbopogon martinii and is a high geraniol product. 

In frost free zones, African Basil, Ocimum gratissimum, has widely naturalized and invaded. It could be grown as an annual in any North American garden from seeds sold via the internet. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citral

In short, the selection of a highly-scented variety Rose Geranium from a local nursery sounds practical for the cold-winter areas. My own favored semi-tropic garden grows Lemon-Grass abundantly with summer water, Lemon-Verbena (Aloysia citrodora), the Australian Lemon Tea Tree (Leptospermum petersonii) Lemon Balm, and a host of other scented plants.

I was recently speaking with the hostess of one of my nuc apiaries, who recounted rubbing hive boxes with handfuls of *peach leaves* for her grandfather as an attractant to swarms. There are threads on BS discussing this practice, which must of been widespread in the South-East until the great homogenization of Wal-Mart culture extinguished folk traditions. 

My supposition is that the peach leaf folklore likely worked well, and the leaves contained detectable quantities of the geraniol-citral-nerol terpenes.


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