Hi Allen, thanks for the reply,
 
My question was concerned with the whole range of behaviour of the
colony.This may manifest itself as inability to forage effectivley due
to loss of ability to orientate to the colony, or increaced defensive
behavior.
 
This was initiated by the findings that Drosophila melanogaster after
ether treatment seem to have problems with orientaton. In  "Drosophila a
laboratory handbook" Michael Ashburner 1989 Cold spring Harbor.
 
He mentions that even after brief treatment with ether flies have
shown:- (and I quote)
 
 a dramatic long term effect..on the searching behavior of the flies.
Flies were tracked in a circular arena, in the center of which was a
banana odor. Control flies, congregrated around the source of the aroma.
Flies that had been briefly etherised once, 4 days before the
experiment, showed a very different behaviour:They had a  strong
aversion to the center of the arena and hugged the walls. This
ether-induced "centrophobism" is apparrently permanent.
 
My question was really to do with the effects of chemical solvent agents
on the behaviour of bees in particular ether and chloroform on foraging
ability.
 
Luckily the problems I was facing, I have now overcome, but it seems
that carbon dioxide is the method of choice over these solvent
anaesthetics. We have a system here in my laboratory for anaethesising
Drosophila, but the cylinders are huge. I have however devised a
portable dry-ice driven equipment, which runs on hot water (and bubbles
also through hot water to warm the gas up so that the bees don't get
chilled.
 
This is reserved for use on bees where on lifting the cover it is like
running into a hailstorm of bees. I find it difficult to find queens
when experiencing intense pain!
 
Steve Pearce
Dept of Biochemistry
University of Dundee