> A colleague working with beekeepers and AHB in Nicaragua reports that, even
> though the beekeepers could get "suited up" sufficiently to avoid direct sting
   s,
> their beekeeping work was sometimes impaired by the venom which got into their
> eyes from the bees outside their veils.(Their eyes would become irritated and
> swollen, even without a sting.)
>
> I've never heard of bees "projecting" venom, or of a similar experience with
> EHB.
 
I have heard of this, from several different sources, and it is also
known from tropical Polybiine paper wasps (which also have large,
highly aggressive colonies and a "mass-attack" defensive response).
The impression I have, however, is that most of these instances are
where the target person was in direct line-of-sight with the colony
entrance, and so the bees/wasps flew straight at their heads at full
speed. If you've ever heard bees hitting a target during a stinging
experiment, you know just how hard a bee can hit in such a situation.
It'd be a real simple experiment - just rig a normal target with a
taut mesh an inch or two from the surface, let bees attack it, and see
how wet the target gets. I'd bet money on its success.
-------(please include "DY" in subj header of mail to this user)--------
Doug "Speaker-To-Insects" Yanega      "UT!"       Bitnet: KUENTO@UKANVAX
My card: 0 The Fool       (Snow Museum, Univ. of KS, Lawrence, KS 66045)
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