At 11:17 PM 1/31/01 GMT, you wrote:

 put a sheet of copper on the landing board or indeed as a landing board?


In dry climates, don't be surprised if they don't like the landing sheet.
Bees  develop electrostatic on their bodies.  We have been measuring the
charge at the hive entrance - it varies with time of year, weather
conditions, etc.  We use a rather pricey instrument to accurately measure
charge on returning bees.  But earlier investigators measured this as a
function of voltage changes as bees entering the hive stepped on a copper
strip.  So what happens when lots of charged bees land and take off from a
common sheet of copper?

I don't know, but its interesting to speculate.




Jerry J. Bromenshenk
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http://www.umt.edu/biology/bees