In message <[log in to unmask]>,
[log in to unmask] writes
>Does anyone know if bumblebees respond the same way to smoke as honeybees?  Does
>it jam their communications and cause them to 'hit the stores'?
I know beekeepers who are willing to move bumble bee nests to save them,
who use smoke. I have moved them without smoke, when they have stopped
flying, after reorganising the nest so as to move them in the evening.
They don't have stores as such - only food for the larvae. This is where
the honeybees score over bumblebees. The stores form a buffer for winter
and variable weather and even variable years as a whole. Bumblebees are
seasonal, relying on the availability of nectar and pollen to build up a
colony sufficiently strong to make new queens and drones for the next
season's colonies. They are therefore much more dependent on the weather
so their numbers vary very much between years.
--
James Kilty

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