Last year I found a 3 foot section of bee tree, or bee gum, at a firewood location and brought it home. Its a 3 foot section of hollow log, full of old brown abandoned comb. Don't know if it has old honey in it but it smells sweet. There were no bees in it.

Kept it for a year as a curiosity, and I have just discovered a small new nest of what might be honeybees in a pile of straw that I have stored near the bee gum. They are not africanized, as I have worked near them all summer without trouble.

Last night I thought they were hornets, and pulled away some bags of pine needles from the nest entrance, and only got one sting, despite annoying them and burning the pine needles in front of the nest. I thought the hornets nest was in the bags of pine needles, now I can see the exposed entrances in the straw.

So, I was wondering, if I nailed a lid on the bee gum log full of old comb, and built a base with a landing board and a 3/8" high, 6" long entrance, and set the bee gum outside of the straw nest with honey on the entrance board, do you think the bees would move into the bee gum?

Do you think that they were attracted to the bee gum in the first place and nested near it, maybe to rob it of old honey? I have not seen them working the bee gum, but have seen them all over the garden and weeds, especially the catnip. But maybe they go into the old bee gum when I am not looking.