The fellow that originaly showed me how to work with bees would never open a hive without being "fully dressed". Together we had eight hives. I could work my two before he even got out there. I quickly realized that the bees only stung me when I did something crazy. Pretty soon i was wearing flip-flops, shorts, and tee-shirt, and he was getting stung 4-5 times as much as me.
As for the veil, it only took getting stung in the eyelid once for me to quit tempting them. Went to church with a black eye, the next morning.
My smoking technique is simple, I light it up, puff it two or three times about 5 feet up-wind of the hive, wait a minute, then set the smoker down just up-wind of the hive. If I need to I'll give them a puff or two. I usually don't smoke them alot.