Never heard of that one. You jerkin my chain?
I used to have fun with my dads hives. I would go and stand in front of the entrance and watch. Turn around and there would be a whole bunch of them in a holding pattern waiting to get into the hive.
When honeybees sting they secret a pheromone. Get enough of it in one place it smells just like bananas (very close).
I've been around bees a lot, and for a while worked as a field hand for a middling sized pollinator and queen producer.
We would take bees from many colonies, to then place in 4-way mating nucs. During the process we'd have a large cage with a pile bees a foot deep or so in the bottom , once we banged the cage on the ground, and squirted them down with syrup water (keeps them from flying as much).
Using a stainless steel bowl (about the size one would use for serving of salad, soup or breakfast cereal) we'd reach into this cage and scoop out about a cup and a half of bees which would be then placed in each of four compartments of the mating nucs, along with a new queen cell which we'd press into the wax of a comb, drawn-out portion facing down, of course.
During that process the banana smell coming from the large cage would become quite noticeable.
We probably ran around a thousand of those four-ways, plus several thousand full colonies.
We'd have to keep dozens of colonies as queen cell builders, too, so they'd be queen-less, and in that condition (moderately crowded) they'd be pissy little bitches, whereas a queen-right colony on a day with good flying weather (warm enough, not too cloudy, hopefully not too windy) would have large percentage of the foraging population gone - out to forage -- and so with just a little smoke (a few good puffs from short distance away from the entrance -- wait about 15-20 seconds--- plus a couple of puffs when opening a colony, they'd usually be not too bad. We'd work them wearing bluejeans and t-shirt, bare-handed, no veil -- whenever we could get away with it. When they'd be a little hot, or if we knew we'd be opening multiple colonies at a time (among dozens, if not a few hundred in one orchard, but spread out by the few, and several dozen in any one place) ---then time to put the veils on.
We'd wear veils AND gloves when making up mating nucs in early spring, and when making up package bees to sell, though everyone tried to avoid using gloves, for the most part. They can be a vector for spreading disease (for one thing) and would often be a hassle to keep track of among a crew of 3-8 people.
Working the queenless colonies would require gloves. The long kind,if you know what I mean. Hat and veil of course, also, although a person could get away with feeding syrup using outside top-feeders (we'd use metal gallon cans inverted into a hole in the top of migratory cover, with small holes drilled in the lid so the syrup would drip slowly).
We'd buy syrup by the tanker load. Seriously. Partial loads, anyway. From tankers as big as fuel tankers one sees filling underground fuel tanks at gas stations. We'd add water to thin it, and sometimes (expensive) additives formulated for bee health.
Nutrition of one of the biggest keys to success with bees. But no, feeding tons of syrup is not the best way to do it.
No sir. My dad and I were working the hives once and after lunch they tore me up while the left pop alone. Only difference in our lunch that day was I had bananas.
Don’t wear dark clothes and never, never, never wear corduroy pants. I had so many stingers in those pants I had to ride home in my underwear