George wrote: You will NEVER become a beekeeper if you wear gloves. Gloves make bees sting you. Work bare-handed, get a few stings (that will teach you what you are doing wrong), and you will develop some immunity to stings depending on how many you get Greetings I used to think this was true. I used to get 50 or more stings a day and think nothing of it. But when I got this job at the bee lab I was introduced to latex dishwashing gloves. These are not *sting proof*, but bees don't seem to sting them very often, and when they do, it doesn't hurt. I can do almost anything I can do bare-handed including catching queens. They also keep my hands from getting covered with propolis. If the weather is warm and sunny, I go bare-handed. But it isn't like that a lot of the time, and with a large number of hives to work, I often have to bother them during bad weather. This is where gloves are useful. I buy them by the gross now and throw them out when they get too sticky or ripped. I still get stung enough to keep up my immunity, but if I am getting more than one every couple of minutes, it's time to throw on the gloves. George is right, of course, that the stings will make you more careful and a better beekeeper. But there are many times that no amount of care will prevent the bees from stinging. If you only have a couple of hives, you can just not work them when they are edgy, but if you have to go in on a bad day -- try the latex gloves. (I also wear coveralls all the time now, but that's as much to keep from staining my regular clothes as anything). pb