Randy
 
I agree, how one approaches the task is important, and bees have memory - so if they get disturbed every time the weed whacker starts up, they'll hit the operator before he/she even gets near the hives.

If you want evidence of training - Brian Smith got them to look for food in response to alarm pheromone.  Scott has 'tamed' nasty colonies.  They like him, hit everyone else.

When I was doing landscape pollution monitoring and collecting samples from our citizen scientists - I found lots who said their colonies were hot tempered.  If you watch them, they suit up, often skip or misuse smoke, and bang everything around.  I'd grab a smoker and work same colony in short sleeves, often without a veil.

One thing common to these backyard volunteers, most came home from days work, played with kids, maybe had a drink, had dinner, and just as the shadows were getting long decided that it was a good time to look at their bees.  My rule of thumb to my crews - when the shadow of the hive is longer than the hive is tall, time to quit.
 


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