J. Waggle wrote:
> he spent about 20 to 30 seconds with his nose nearly resting on the top
bars of each colony.

I do this. In fact, one time I pulled into an apiary late on a rainy day. I
was trying to decide whether to inspect or give it up for the day (and come
back another day, of course).

There were twelve hives and I decided to do a sniff test. I opened the
covers one by one and sniffed. It wasn't until the last hive that I smelled
that distinctive odor of (of what? I liken it to the smell of road kill in
summer) ... I decided to do a thorough check and found them all to be OK
except the one I sniffed out. 

By the way, apropos of sting odor on the hands: last season I got into the
habit of washing my hands with rubbing alcohol, mainly to clean off the
propolis. To think that I went 30 years with fingers stained by bee glue
before I thought of this! Works really well, and doesn't seem to dry out the
skin like you'd think it would.

This year I switched to a hand sanitizer which is 60% ethanol and has
glycerin which probably is better on the hands. I use it between hives; it
eliminates bee glue build up on the fingers and removes the odor of bee
stings. Bees do not seem to object to the smell of alcohol at all, nor does
the mild scent of the hand lotion seem to be a problem.

pb

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