> From: Michael Palmer <[log in to unmask]>
> Reply-To: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology
> <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Thu, 6 Feb 2003 12:36:34 -0500
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Question from an old beekeeper
>
>> Its not unusual for me to look down at the end of a day and
>> see a stinger or two in my fore arms and can't remember having been stung.
>> Wonder if that's true of others?

Absolutely true.

I have made the following comment before, regarding gloves, which I don't
use twice in a summer of hobby beekeeping.  If one uses pinestraw for smoker
fuel (the very best of fuels), heat your smoker fairly hot to begin, and
smoke hands and bare arms generously, so that the vaporized smoker volatiles
precipitate off on cooler skin;  bees simply can't then identify your animal
odor, and hardly ever sting.  Vinegar will do the same, tho much less well.
I have tried Liquid Smoke, but it did not work well, in my opinion.  Check
this out, I think you will like it.

If you catch a sting on the hand, immediately give the place a blast of
smoke and it will obliterate the sting's target odor;  not forgetting the
other variables (e.g., carbon dioxide in your breath, possibly leading them
to attack nares and mouth, the former mentioned by a recent respondant).

Bob Barnett
B'ham  AL