A friend writes

We know when we smoke a hive a given percent of bees rush to open cells of honey and suck up the honey/nectar.   Why the bees are moved to this activity may not be know BUT   it certainly diverts a given percent of the colony from considering other activities-- like stinging the beekeeper.

Second,  it is likely while smoking, guard bees release their alarm odor(s)--- or release their alarm odor once the beekeeper begins to open the hive this disturbance ( opening the hive) rallies other bees to  search and possible sting the intruder( in most cases a beekeeper). But the smoke masks the released alarm odor(s) and as a consequence  aggressive action by the guard bees is averted to some degree.

Smoke has been used for a very long time   If it did not in some way or manner reduce the aggressive behavior of bees when the hive is being disturbed thus allowing the beekeeper to open and inspect the hive WHY would beekeepers continue to use it.

Try opening a hive without the use of smoke, may be during a strong honey flow one can open a hive and inspect it without the use of smoke.

Bees live very short lives thus they are unlikely to know whether the beekeeper is a friend or foe. Beekeepers that place their picture in a hive have not obtained any positive results.

It may take bees 30 minutes to fully engorge to flee from a raging forest fire BUT the queen of that colony will be unable to fly ( accompany them) because she has not had time to reduce her body weight.  Thus why bees engorge when smoked is not fully understood but it is fun to speculate. Hey, look at it this way when we, humans are under pressure we also tend to eat and/or drink more. Coors anyone.

             ***********************************************
The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software.  For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html