My Bees Thought I was a Bear!

My bee experience has not been good. When I received my bees in April the weather turned bad and I had to keep them in the kitchen in their "package" box for four days until the rain stopped and the temperature warmed. Then when I "installed" them in their hive they were aggressive and stung me. 

Last night was my garden club meeting and member Patti Harrington who is a naturalist for Green Acres near Cincinnati, gave us the program on raising bees. It was basically the bee lecture she gives to school kids.

It was all very interesting and toward the end she told some little anecdotal stories. One of them was about the fact the bees seem to see brown color and if you are wearing brown clothing they think you are a bear and will attack you. 

Honey bee enjoying a clover flower. Photo found on Bing photos.

Well, when I installed my bees I was wearing brown stretch corduroy pants and I was surprised that several bees landed on my pants and stung me through them. They also chased me and even when I was some distance from the hive and pulled off my hat and vail, they still chased me and stung me on top of my head and on my neck.

The next time I worked with the bees I was wearing an old white cotton oxford shirt left behind by my ex-husband and a pair of blue cotton pants with a tight weave. The bees didn't bother with me at all.

Yesterday morning I went to work on the hive wearing a cream and brown plaid hoody type jacket. A bee got into my sleeve and stung my wrist.  When I came into the house one was still on my coat.

I was to the point of thinking I would call another bee keeper and ask them to take the blanky blank hive away. Then I went to garden club.  It all makes sense now.

 I still have a lot to learn about the bees and a lot of work to do with them, but  I will be careful to wear the white shirt and NO BROWN CLOTHING and hope they will be less aggressive toward me.  They have had wonderful flowers for the last month - honey locust, honeysuckle bushes, multi-floral roses, blackberries, elderberries, true vining honeysuckle and now white and red clover, lots of clover. Patti says the clover has lots of nectar and will bloom all summer so they should have plenty to eat.  I've noticed some of the blackberries are already setting fruit and hope that is the result of having bees near by.