Yesterday I had the oppoortunity to do something I think every beekeeper of any length of time with an abiding interest in beekeeping should avail themselves of. A good friend of mine is a commercial beek with a hive count of over 500.
It's spring (for us down south) and that means package time when beeks across the country purchase packages of bees to start new colonies and my friend produces those packages. Yesterday a crew of us put up over 300 3lb packages. I'll walk you through the process in simple terms then describe the actual experience.
First my friend has been feeding his bees to build the hives to a very strong population level to allow him to "harvest" the excess population of bees for the packages he sells. Next he has to collect these bees and transfer them to package boxes. The following link has pictures and a description of installing a package in a new hive. What I will describe is how the packages are prepared at the producer.

http://www.cals.ncsu.edu/entomology/apiculture/pdfs/2.17%20copy.pdf

It takes a good sized crew and lots of equipment to do this in the numbers we did but I'll stick to the basic rundown. Ahead of time the package cages have been assembled and prepped as have the cans of sugar syrup that will feed the bees while in transit. The new mated queens that will be inserted in the packages as they are made up will have been ordered from a queen producer (another highly detailed and very specialized process outside the scope of this thread) and delivery arranged so that the queens arrive on the day of or day before the packages are to be made up so that the queens are not held outside a hive any longer than possible. As you can see this is planned months in advance and on a very strict timetable and cannot be delayed as much as a day, rain or shine the packages are made up on the day scheduled.
Once the preparations are made the crew of beeks arrives at the beeyard with the trucks and trailers needed to haul all the equipment and packages.
To extract the bees from the hives the advance preparation is that queen excluders are placed on all the hives so that the queen in the donor hives are restricted to the lower areas (brood chambers) and a super or supers are placed on top so that the worker poulation can expand up into the supers. Special stands are used that hold a large funnel that is the length and width of a honey super on top with the throat or mouth the exact diameter to fit into the hole in the top of the package cage. These stands are set up at a comfortable working distance from the hives with empty packages stacked besdie them in a manner that allows quick and efficiecnt work. Another work station is set up where one individual can prepare the queen cages (attach a strip of aluminum to hang the cage inside the package) and assemble the final package by adjusting the amount of bees in the package to the correct weight (done visually) and then quickly inserting the queen cage and the can of syrup. Then the package is passed off to a third work station where a couple others prepare it for shipment.
Now back to the hives and "harvesting" the bees. One beek will fire up the smoker and hit all the entrances with a good strong blast of smoke, this will be the only smoking done as time does not allow the slow leisurely smoke and gentle manipulation of the hobbiest beekeeper. Next all of the tops/feeders and other equipment will be removed from the hives in the yard (anywhere from 30 to over a hundred) and set aside. If at this point any weak or otherwise hive is discovered it is closed up and not used. Then one by one the individual supers are removed with the bees and placed on the stand with the funnel and the super is shaken, bumped and blown with a blower to move the bees down out of the supers into the packages. It takes two to three supers per package so alot of supers are pryed off the hives and toted to the stands. Each super is removed and shaken twice (replaced back on the hive and allowed to refill with bees) before the hives are closed back up. BTW this process is called shaking the bees as before the advent of gas powered blowers shaking was the means of dislodging the bees (a much less efficient method).

Now that I have described the mechanics of the process I'll be glad to regale you with the effects on the beekeeper (yours truly). As anyone with a lick of sense should know bees have a very low opinion of having their house ripped open and being bumped, banged and generally manhandled and voice their displeasure accordingly and the larger and stronger the colony (and the best colony for making up packages will be very strong) object even louder. Also since a large number of hives are rather difficult to move from place to place without a means of mechanization all commercial hive are kept on four way pallets (a special pallet designed to funtion as a bottom board for four seperate hives placed side to side and back to back) and these pallets are placed on the ground and not on an elevated stand. This is where the beekeeper's back objects to being bumped, banged and generally manhandled, and my back is screaming it's displeasure.
All in all we visited (raided) four different beeyards and it was on the first stop of the day that I realized my first mistake. I approached this as I did my bees or a standard single colony cutout with just my bee jacket (I have a good one, the ultrabreeze, that I highly recommend as it is indeed stingproof) my gloves and a pair of blue jeans and boots. Five minutes in and I was running for the duct tape when I felt a crawling and sharp pain just to the south of my favorite organ. Definitely tape your pants legs shut if you choose to partake in this activity. I also was reminded very quickly the denim material is no where near stingproof though thick enough to blunt the full effect. Moderated down from a full sting to that of a fire ant bite but as the day wore on and the alarm pheromone saturated the denim it become a rolling barage. It was somewhere in the third yard that the idea for the title of this thread came to me I just stood there taking hit after hit and felt like I was caught up in the middle of an electrical storm. It was very obvious by that time the full effect of the alarm pheromone as on the first stop of the day prior to any sting I could safely walk around fully unsuited and approach the hives with impunity by the second and third stop I could not even safely exit the truck unsuited as my mere appearance in a yard would elicit an immediate response without any other action having taken place. We beeks call that "meeting you at the truck".
All in all and over a hundred plus hits for the day it was a a real educational experience for me. I have a much greater level of respect for those who choose to derive their living from commercial level beekeeping and think I will have a greater appreciation for the bees in my own yards. Again, I think every beek who truly loves apiculture should participate in some form of commercial beekeping manipulation to broaden their knowledge. It might be painful but it will definitely gain you a breadth of knowledge most do not have.
I will also be upgrading my equipment to a full suit since while my bee jacket performed fully to par and I am unscathed from the waist up, other than a single hit to the upper lip which was my fault, my legs look like the worst case of measles ever recorded.

A very interesting read.

BTW, here's an image on the back of the jeans I wore yesterday. All those little white specks are the stingers left in the denim.

Good read. I just read about some city workers in Florida that got swarmed by "Africanized" bee's. Have you had any problems or experience with this?

Officially no africanized this far north, yet. Official reports confirm only two documented africanized colonies in Georgia (one resulting in a human death).
Personally I think it's an over hyped issue as those I worked with yesterday were good italian stock headed up by young vigorous queens bred in Hawaii (where the africanized does not exist) and the results were pretty much what is reported of africanized stock. Admittedly we did a massive disturbance to get that reation but any strong bee colony is capable of that reaction the africanized just seems to have much more of hair trigger and will readily send the whole colony into the fight.

Great story David! Sounds like a blast...Get ready for an early swarm season I cut a few swarm cells today from my hives...They are all boiling over with bees and pollen with not much honey left.

The second yard we visited had two hanging when we arrived. One mediocre and one that was a beast of about six pounds.

I'll be getting into mine this weekend and doing splits.

Whatever you do do not bring those pants to my apiary! Do not wear them in yours!!!!!!!They will wear you out again!

I know, I thought of trying an experiment today. Take them some distance from the hives and wave them a few times and repeat closer and closer until I got a reaction just to see the reaction distance but I thought better of it. Mine have been fairly docile but those britches might create something ugly.

If you want I'll give them to you to wear.

Just got off the phone with my friend, he's of the opinion that I must have killed off at least one package worth of his bee with those pants. LOL

Pants? What happened to your kilt?
(That would make a good epi-pen commercial!)

I can only imagine about the whole kilt scenario...What do they say is "not" being worn under the kilt? OUCH!!!!!!

Very interesting read. I have seen some video of this and it looks wild! After hearing you speak at the Rondi my wife and I have become interested in bee keeping and have been to a few local meetings. We plan to get a nuc near the end of the month.

I'm with Andy on this. The kilt would have made not only a good story but a good video.