Did you know that honeybees can see colors? It's true: their favorite flower colors are blue, purple, and yellow. Is there a color they DON"T like? Yes: bees despise black, because the mortal enemy of a honeybee is...a BEAR! Bears are black, and that is why beekeepers traditionally wear white when tending hives. No natural predators of bees are white: in fact, white doesn't register in their minds as anything sinister. Bee suits are actually NOT stingproof (and I was stung yesterday through my white suit), but rather rely on the color to avoid provoking the guard bees. Bees are curious and attracted to smells and colors. Another fun fact: honeybees' sense of smell is 40 times better than a dog's, and hence they find nectar based on smell AND sight!
Bright colors attract curious bees, but one bright color, RED, is not actually bright to a bee: red is actually BLACK in a bee's compound eyes, so if you are milling around near a hive, wearing a red shirt is just as bad and provocative as wearing a black shirt. Add in perfumes, shampoos, laundry detergent, and other smells, and you become a target! There are days when we are chased around the yard - and nowhere close to the bee hives - probably because the bees are not happy about the way our hair products or body wash smell! We wash our bee suits regularly with nonscented laundry detergent, and most of the time, we prefer to smell like smoke, which disguises our smells and hopefully, makes us less "bear-like" to the ladies. Many beekeepers report that Pantene shampoo irritates bees, ditto Irish Spring Soap!
Some people think that if they spray themselves with scents that bees dislike, such as garlic and putrid eggs (eww!) it will keep the bees away: not true! If you are wearing a red shirt and you smell like garlic, you are asking for bees to harrass you. Hostility towards bears is instinctual, and just shows that bears are big, stinky, dark, and destructive creatures. One bear can decimate a hive in minutes, eating honey and baby bees, which the latter is actually the main target of the bears.
Our bees are safely guarded behind an electric fence!
Disclaimers: Blog posts are opinions, not advice. One thing all beekeepers will agree on, is that if you ask 10 beekeepers what to do, you'll get 13 different answers. Beekeeping is alchemy, nature, and a bit of magic.
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