kuehn john c wrote:
>
> In central Illinois, Apis Mellifera fans both ways at the hive entrance.
>       An old inspector taught me that there is a place on the hive
that is drawing air into, and another place exhausting air. You can puff
smoke near the inlet and let the bees draw it in. In a few minutes, the
bees will reverse the flow and the smoke will be blowing back at you.
Now you switch to the other spot and it will now be the inlet and you
can pump a little more smoke in there. After a couple of cycles like
this even very aggressive colonies can be worked. The old inspector said
" you can put em all on the bottom board". This really works on nasty
colonies or on days you should'nt be working bees but have to.
        When the flow reverses, the bees at both ends (and I assume in
the middle as well) change the direction they fan although not at
exactly the same time. So I'm sure they fan both ways here, but I'm not
sure if they can do this while facing the same direction. I'll have to
look at that this coming season.