Good day to you

In the process of cleaning bee sites, one is, per occasion, forced to do
the work while the bees are on site. The work often entails raking,
weeding, repairing fences and mowing.

It has come to our notice that bees will invariably attack an
electrically driven mowing device, to the extent that even the sparking
plug lead, wheels and air filter on the mower get stung.

Petrol driven mowers suffer the same fate, if somewhat less of a frenzy
is noticed.

Two stroke (petrol and oil mix, normally of 50:1) driven mowers (and
even bee blowers) seem to be considerably less irritating to the bees
even though these make a lot more noise, and produce a blue coloured
smoke whenever the mix is too rich.

Could anyone comment (1) on similar experiences, (2) on possible reasons
for this phenomenon and (3) possible practical applications of the
reasons.

Many thanks

Robert Post