I just saw a video of a woman not wearing any sort of suit or protective clothing moving a whole beehive, and even going as far as scooping up bees with her hands. I always feel like anytime I’m even close to a bee I might get stung. How do they avoid it?
In: Biology
It’s important to remember most animals like bees are defensive, not aggressive. They want to protect the hive and they want to protect themselves. Honeybees are also a domestic animal, they have been bred to be less defensive and easier to work with and if a queen breeds mean workers she gets replaced. So it’s less working with wolves (non-domestic bees and wasps) and more like working with stray dogs.
A lot of the time videos like that are working with swarms. Swarms are where the bees are looking for a new home, so they’re often tired and they have no hive with food and babies to defend, this means they have less to fight for and are much less likely to sting a human.
Third, sometimes beekeepers do get stung, even with protection. Individual bees can decide you’re more of a threat than they’re willing to risk, and often beekeeper protective gear doesn’t protect 100% (like gloves thick enough that a determined bee can’t sting through make it difficult to work with equipment, so most beekeepers use lighter gloves that make it harder for the bees to sting, but not impossible) and beekeepers just accept this, must like people who have cactus as houseplants sometimes get stuck, or gardeners with brambles sometimes get poked by thorns.
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