>I'm curious about this.  I was under the impression that at least some
races of African bees will indeed abandon their hive and brood if they are
over smoked.

It is certainly true for apis cerana.  Over smoking will often provoke
absconding, and I had the unfortunate experience of doing that one time
even though I had read the caution.  Also, with apis dorsata once the honey
hunters have smoked the queen off the comb the bees all abscond and do not
return.  I was able to harvest honey from the honey head without the bees
absconding by using a limited amount of smoke,  but the experiment was not
terribly successful as the hive turned quite aggressive afterwards and
attacked villagers passing it on their way to the water spring.

I do not have enough experience with African bees to comment except to say
that anytime I worked African bees I used a lot of smoke without any
problem, and a beekeeper who stayed with me for several weeks from Surinam
told me that when they were working bees they had one person with a BIG
smoker (he laughed at mine) who was almost constantly smoking the hives.

Stan

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