> Mr. Aebi mentions a few times that he and his dad felt the bees were demoralized by too-invasive inspections.

People who work in the bee industry, and especially the production of queens and bees for sale, are in the hives all the time and do all sorts of things that seem invasive, exploitive and even downright abusive. And yet honey bees bounce back like pruned grape vines, which produce bigger and better fruit than those left alone.

Sure, bees can be overstressed and succumb, but the fact that they have been kept by humans for centuries under less than ideal conditions proves that they are adaptable, capable and resilient. A lot of this hands-off stuff is based on imaginings which have never been subjected to any objective scrutiny. 

Beekeepers like to think that honey bees have sorts of feelings; A. I. Root wrote: "Of course, they have particular notes, as of joy, sorrow, anger, despair, etc., which are produced by the wings..." Later investigators, T. C. Schneirla, were less effusive:

> there is a direct transmission of excitement from individual to individual through antennal stroking, special air-transmitted stridulatory vibrations, and through body vibrations transmitted via the substratum. These effects are not codified in any real sense, do not convey "information," and lack any directive effect in themselves.

PLB

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