Friends,
I have my own experience with calming bees by the breath. It really works.
Most of our colonies are quite calm so it is enough to open the hive and
to puff slightly among the bees and continue until they leave top bars.
Bees actually behive like if they were smoked. Naturally, the influence of
smoker is stronger. For the time of getting experience with this behaviour
I vould recommend to veare bee veil.;-)
I am convinced that CO2 plays an important role in bees' physiology which
has not been fully understood so far (swithing the hormonal cains). Maybe
it is really this gas itself whitch acts on bees in a smoke.
I have the idea, now. We can test this hypothesis quite simply. If we fill
the common siphone bottle with the gas only we can use it instead of
a smoker and shall know the answer.
 
Best regards,
Vladimir Ptacek
Fac. Sci., Masaryk Univ.,
611 37 Brno, Czech Republic