waldig wrote:

>  Alcohol?  I hope it won't make the bees mad.

I have done hundreds of ether rolls in the field and often we transferred
the dead bees to jars containing ethanol. The smell of alcohol never seems
to annoy the bees while the smell of the ether seems to infuriate them. 

In fact, I have taken to washing my hands with regular rubbing alcohol
throughout the day, as I do inspections. Not only does it remove the
propolis build-up on my hands, it also seems to remove any other odors that
might bother the bees. 

The constant use of rubbing alcohol on my hands seems to have no ill-effect;
it does not dry them out like you might expect. It certainly does make the
bees mad the way the ether does.

Pete

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