The particular colony FRAMEshift is talking about is new from a package this year, and I can confirm that these girls are gentle as lambs. We have two stings total from this colony, and both were incurred while shaking out the package.
The colony's in my back yard, so I'm generally the one who works it. I'm not much bothered by stings as long as they aren't in my eye, so our safety gear is limited to veils. On a sunny day, I'd have no problem doing a basic inspection with neither veil nor smoke. If it's threatening thunder, as it's done here for the last two weeks solid, or if I'm going to break all the way in and move frames around, I'll wear a veil and/or have a lit smoker on hand in case anyone sticks her abdomen up in the air. ;)
But I generally don't need to use the smoker beyond maybe a puff in the door. Sometimes I'll puff an accidentally crushed bee to keep her sisters from thinking about vengeance. That's about it.
I know that they can suddenly take it into their bitty bee heads to sting me, even though they're normally docile, but so far we get along wonderfully. Maybe it's that, only having the one hive right now, I can take my time, move slowly, and back up if a guard bee buzzes me. Or maybe these bees are genetically more chill.
Anyone else have particularly gentle bees? Maybe I should try to breed a line of pacifists.
