>Have to disagree, when you have a hive that meets you at the truck door, tell me how they work without smoke.

You re-queen them!

This area was notorious for bees like that.  Then I started to eliminate bad temper by raising queens from the best stocks.  One apiary at a time I killed all the queens heading bad tempered colonies (no matter how productive they were) and re-queened from the home-raised good stock.  It took just one season take make a huge difference.

But it is not a one-shot operation.  We still have idiots who buy in exotic queens which, when crossed with native stock, produce the bad temper.  So it is an ongoing process - but it is now rare to see temper and many colonies could probably be worked without a veil.

Best wishes

Peter 
52°14'44.44"N, 1°50'35"W

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