Bees ?like ?don't like red velvety gloves

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Amari

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A couple of weeks ago I accompanied my mentee to check her two-hive apiary. We saw that the QEx had been left on between the super and BB on the 'angry hive' the inhabitants of which 'always go for me'. She decided against removing it for fear of retribution, but today decided to go ahead to remove the risk of the queen becoming stranded below the QEx.
We were fully suited-up, I wore stout gauntlet gloves, she wore red velvet/fleece gloves over Marigolds. I lifted the super and she removed the QEx remarkably easily. A modest number of bees (c.100) flew up most of which settled on her red gloves, the rest all over her bee suit, buzzing loudly. They resisted attempts to brush them off. Not a bee settled on me!
It's sometimes difficult to explain these phenomena of the apiary. Never a dull day!
PS: no perfumes or deoderants
 
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Bees see red as black. They use to attack on dark thing, when it moves.

If you stand on the side of the hive, that wind moves the human odor or venom odor onto the hive, bees become nervous.

When bees sting gloves and stings are naled on glove surface, it irritates really the bees.
 
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Lots of things could make the bees go just for her,what does she wash her bee suit with? some powders the bees hate also the gloves are red which as Finman says the bees can see as black. The gloves may also have their own smell. I've noticed at our association apiary there are some people that always seem to attract more bees onto their suits whilst others have none,Perhaps its just a bee and people thing.
 
I would never wear velvety gloves any more than I would wear a woolen bee suit but everyone to their own ( I did have a woolen swimming suit when I was six though!!!!!) . Bees don't like things share their legs catch, hair etc.
E
 
( I did have a woolen swimming suit when I was six though!!!!!) .
E

Yellow and black striped I presume!

Your avatar is more like the cartoon burglars' clothing than those of a policeman.
 
My black gloves rarely get attacked

I wear thin black gloves all the time so would suggest it may be the velvety texture that irritates them rather than the colour.
 
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Sometimes I have hives, which follow my hand like sand storm when I move hand over the gang. Such happens. The last swarm was from church tower. Not very mercy.

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Yellow and black striped I presume!

Your avatar is more like the cartoon burglars' clothing than those of a policeman.

Under cover ........ And of course well retired so .... When in Rome.... :icon_204-2:
 
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Sometimes I have hives, which follow my hand like sand storm.

Sometimes I have hives where the bees follow me everywhere I go....for miles and miles. The worst ones attack and follow me in the truck...But that's our "friendly" local mongrels for you. Guaranteed to turn a walk in the park into a marathon run around the countryside.
...a good re-queening to some nice exotic import soon sorts that anti-social behaviour out.
 
I wear thin black gloves all the time so would suggest it may be the velvety texture that irritates them rather than the colour.

If you ever get to keep angry bees from hell your opinion may change, i have and i also used to wear black gloves, the only reason i wore them is the bees could not get there sting through them, in the end i had to wear blue nitrile gloves over the black ones as it became hard work doing manipulations when my hands where constantly balled up with bees killing themselves in the process, the blue nitrile gloves did not stop my hands getting balled up but it lessened the problem quite a lot.
 
Velvet? eek smooth gloves every time. I did notice that when I wore a red rugby shirt near the apiary I did get stung. So much for local Welsh bees ;-)
 

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