Bees are very sensitive to the way people behave so if you act calmly rather than running around and slapping your hand around you are less likely to be stung or frighten a bee.  However, the statement that bees can “smell fear” has been used in many cases and when taken literally is kind of silly.  While smell does play a role in hive defense, the odor that the bees sense is not necessarily the “smell of fear” but the smell of something foreign that could possibly become a threat to the hive or the workers.   Fear is defined as an emotion, an internal response that is generated by a being’s nervous system when it encounters a situation it perceives to be dangerous.  The word smell however has been broadly defined in some cases as being a distinctive quality characterizing something.

It is very likely that the statement that animals or insects such as bees can “smell fear” developed from the idea that animals are able to sense if a nearby creature is acting strangely.  As a result of an alarm response to this action, the bee uses pheromones to alert its members of the family group to the presence of an intruder or potential threat.  In this manner, the “fear scent” produced by a honeybee worker does not provoke aggression by a predator; instead it functions to protect the hive and its other workers.  The detection of a foreign odor by a honeybee worker may in fact be something that is enough to elicit an alarm secretion.

When this pheromone is released and the alarm excites other working bees in or near the hive, it attracts them to the source and thus, to the intruder.  The secretion itself does not necessarily cause an attack however.  The attack producing stimuli come from the intruder, whose behavior usually is what then guides the attack. It could be said then, that if an individual were to approach a bee hive, and his body odor since it is a foreign smell to the hive may sufficiently excite the bees, if the person than becomes afraid and begins to move about a lot, he is more likely to be attacked by bees.

The survival of bees throughout the cold months of winter is largely dependent upon what particular species the bee belongs to.  The social bees do not hibernate in the south such as birds do; instead they live or die in their natural environments.  Honeybees usually do not die in the winter, while bumblebees do.  In winter the queen bee will stop laying eggs so numbers in the hive will be reduced by deaths due to old age, she will then find a sheltered place to stay during the winter while all other bees die as the cold weather comes.

Usually in the winter the queen bee can be found burrowing in a well drained sandbank or taking up occupancy in an abandoned mouse nest.  Once she has settled into her nest, she then begins to make beebread from the nectar and pollen she has collected over the summer.  She then dumps the load and lays eggs on it.  As a final step she covers it with wax and relaxes atop it hibernating for the winter until springtime.  In the spring the queen bee will begin laying again to bring the bee’s numbers back up.

There are about 20,000 known species of bees.  Some bees are able to sting a victim more than once, while others can only sting once and usually die after doing so.  It just depends on the species.

Bees store their venom in sacs attached to their stinger and only female bees are able to sting.  The stinger is part of the female bee’s reproductive design.  Certain species of bees die after stinging because these stingers are attached to their abdomen and have hooks on them.  When the bee tries to fly away after stinging something, part of its abdomen is ripped away resulting in its demise.

Honeybees and killer bees are only able to sting their victims once, while bumble bees can sting more than once because their stingers are smooth and do not get caught in the victim’s skin when they go to fly away.  Carpenter bees are also able to sting over and over again due to their stingers not being hooked or barbed.

Most stinging insects are semi dormant at night so it is a very rare occurrence for a bee to be out at that time.  If an individual gets stung at night by a bee it is most likely due to the fact that they have accidently disturbed a bee’s hive.  Bees live both above and below ground and are mainly active during the day. However, there are very few species that are considered to be “night fliers” and may sometimes become attracted to your porch lights.

Generally speaking for the most part, seeing a bee at night is not really something most people should worry about.  If it is cold outside for instance, during the late evening, night, or very early morning bees usually tend to be less active as a result.  You may see a few wondering around from time to time during later hours but they are usually not as aggressive and it is a rare happening that they will bother you in any way unless you annoy it by swatting at it or something along those lines.  Bees are most active when the heat of the sun hits them during the day.

Bees are one of the main reasons that so many flowers are brightly colored.  This is because they are attracted to the brighter colored flowers.  As a result, these are the flowers that often get pollinated.  Some colors have more influence on bees than others.  Bees also see in a slightly different spectrum than humans.  They are able to see into the ultraviolet part of the electromagnetic spectrum that we humans are not able to see.  As a result of this type of vision, bees are also unable to see the color red, and are very attracted to the colors yellow and blue.  The color black is a warning sign for them to stay away, this “warning” most likely evolved from the fact that many of their predators such as bears, etc. are a darker color.  Seeing the color black for a bee is kind of its heads up to not enter.

It should be mentioned that the color of clothing that one wears will not directly influence an individual’s chances of getting stung by a bee per se, although you might find that more bees will be attracted to come into the area.  The bright colors will not make bees sting any more than if they are around colors that are not bright.  One of the main reasons people often get stung is because when a stinging insect comes into their vicinity they get scared and often act silly and do things that they shouldn’t which threaten the bee causing it to sting.  If a person remains still and doesn’t agitate the bee, they will have better chances of not getting stung and the bee will most likely determine very quickly that there is no nectar to be found there and move along.