School classrooms have been coming to our apple orchard for field trips and
orchard tours for years now.  We give them a tour of our processing plant, a
hay ride and then a beekeeping demonstration that includes our observation
bee hives.

We bring out supers to show the children what honey looks like before we
extract and then we give an extracting demonstration.  A few bees always find
a way to join in on the fun the second they smell the honey.  Even a vew
wasps and bumble bees show up for the occassion.  These stray bees gives us a
chance to show the students that foraging bees are not a danger to anyone
unless you try to pick it up or if they accidently sit on one (we use a
little humor here and throughout our tours).   We had one child stung last
year out of 2,000 students.  He accidently put his hand on a bee that was
gathering honey from a honey stix thrown on the ground.

The questions always come up about killer bees (African bees).  The students,
teachers and parents want to know what they can do if they were to encounter
such a situation that would possibly put them in danger.

I have recently encountered two very aggressive hives in my bee yards.  One
was so agressive that it made me retreat. My pant legs were so covered with
crawling bees I could hardly see the fabric, and my hands and body were
dotted with clinging bees trying to penetrate the cloth.  Bees were furiously
striking at my veiled face and upper torso that it sounded like I was in the
middle of a small hail storm.  I puffed my smoker in the air all about me as
I backed up a considerable distance from the bee yard.  This did not
discourage the attackers and the agressive bees continued their fierce
attack.

I ducked for cover in a dark building.  This seemed to help tremendously as
the flying bees sought the light from outdoors.  Most bees seem to return to
the hive, but a handful still waited outside.  I ducked out a back door and a
few of the bees still found me and continued the fight.  I was greatful that
day that I was fully protected when I encountered this hive.  What would have
happened if I hadn't been?

Based upon this experience, I decided to seek thoughts and answers from the
list as to what advice you would give to a person, young or old, were they to
encounter agressive bees?

Ed Costanza