Peter wrote:
>I have been a beekeeper for more than 30 years and I have never believed that old story about bees "thinking" the hive is on fire. Impossible to prove, anyway. If the bees are loading up to abandon the hive, how come even when you smoke the heck out of them, they don't leave the hive? 

I don't disagree, and I note the post that someone's bees burnt up rather than abscond.  However, I would also note that when I was in the Philippines we did smoke apis dorsata right off the nest.  The "smoker" was a roll of nipa palm leaves, green ones surrounding a core of dry ones, and was about two meters long and 20 cm in diameter.  In fifteen minutes it put out more smoke than I use in a month.   Almost every bee that could fly left the comb in the absconding swarm.  So the instinct is there somewhere in the apis genus, but maybe has been bred out of our bees (but perhaps the gorging reaction to smoke remains).
Stan

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