[vintagedave]

Could you share more about why you think that, or your relationship with your bees please? How do they recognize you and behave to you? Do they have a group intelligence or do individuals know you?

I ask because I’d love to keep bees myself someday and the relationships people have with bees are something I don’t know well, or don’t understand, but am fascinated by. (The tradition linked for this thread is one I’m familiar with, for example — but what I don’t know is what makes people believe it. What is the experience of beekeeping that leads people to believe bees understand?) It’s one primary reason I’m keen to become a beekeeper, to experience and to learn. I’d love to hear whatever you have to say.

[hotpotamus]

I keep bees and I like them, but there's a reason you wear a protective suit to work on them; they aren't all that keen to be friends. Tame bees will pretty much just ignore you, and that's probably the best you can hope for. But you do get to see what they're up to and watch them work which is pretty impressive. It's not particularly hard to get started keeping them if you want to give it a shot.