Abstract
In our garden we have several bee hives. To work with the bees, it is necessary to dress the part- making sure that the bee suit is zipped up properly with no gaps. The bee suit is white because white apparently calms the bees. It is also necessary to puff smoke in to the hive which also makes the bees less likely to focus on you- bee keepers say that the bees react as if to a forest fire, and move to protect their babies. On the hot day that this recording was made the hive is heaving with bees. I put the Zoom recorder in to the gap made by removing two frames, heavy with honey and brood. The bees are communicating intensely with each other, loudly buzzing, sound which they hear through organs in their antennae and their legs. For many years it was thought that bees could not hear.
