> So is my notion that the bees think: "Smoke! Smoke! It's a bush fire! Save
> the honey!" and then, being comfortably fat with the honey, don't feel like
> stinging, is that too fanciful to be true?
 
I recall someone's research (who/when/where who knows) that worked
out time that it would take for a queen to be 'flyable'.  That is,
how long would she have to have to go off the lay in order to be able
to fly the sort of distances required to get away from a bush fire.
 
And the conclusion was that considerably longer than I would have
expected.  And that my 'lay' description of smoke makes them prepare
to leave the hive would, from an evolutionary sense, probably not be
the reason that smoke works!
 
 
  (\      Nick Wallingford
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