By co-incidence, I have just been given a copy of Bee World from 1965 in which a story is reported about bees and aircraft. Seems that the beekeeper ran a market garden and a fifty hive apiary some five miles south-west of an airbase. He noticed that when the wind was from the west or south-west and planes from the base flew low over his apiary, the bees 'always came out to see what the noise was all about'. On such a day he set up some balloons on canes in an attempt to keep pigeons from his crops and when about thirty were in place a plane flew over. Within five minutes his bees had stung the balloons and burst them all. The main point of the story was that the balloons were red, yellow and blue - and the bees burst them in that order! The balloons were from five to a hundred yards from the hives and the colours were randomly distributed. The beekeeper was not attacked. I doubt this will help in the case of the helicopters, but I thought it an interesting story. Peter Edwards (wondering if Jim can resist the challenge of trying to replicate this one!) [log in to unmask] www.stratford-upon-avon.freeserve.co.uk/ (The story was NOT dated 1 April) :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: -- Visit www.honeybeeworld.com/BEE-L for rules, FAQ and other info --- ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::