Last season, I raised about 100 queens. When one of them started laying
eggs, I would carry her inside my closed fist to an enclosed area with
good lighting to be marked. With all queens except one, all I ever felt
was legs touching my fingers, or sometimes a little headbutting trying
to escape from one end of my fist or the other. The one exception,
though, very definitely was biting my palm all the way in and all the
way back to her nuc. The skin on my hand didn't appear to be broken; no
blood was drawn, but the sensation was almost painful. The closest
comparison might be to the bite of an earwig.

James Kilty wrote:
>

> By the way, to change the subject completely, has anyone come across
> bees that nip your fingers, perhaps as a precursor to stinging? Is this
> tendency associated with grooming mites? One of my colleagues reports it
> regularly and I am just starting to notice it.
> --