> People just resist change.
I've always loved change if it's an improvement.
I have tried:
Liquid smoke. I didn't like that the smell lingered for days or weeks.
Sugar water. I didn't like sticky bees and it didn't really keep them calm as much as it kept them from flying and kept them busy.
Water. It just didn't work well. It kept them from flying so much, but didn't really keep them calm. Only the wet ones were busy doing other things.
Water with essential oils (various including HBH and wintergreen). This worked better than water or sugar water at keeping them calm, but again, only really on the ones getting sprayed and not on the hive in general. Also, I worry that HBH simulates actual pheromones in the hive and I don't really want to confuse the bees for a long time after I leave, just long enough to do my work.
Smoke. Keeps them remarkably calm compared to nothing and lasts somewhere between 10 minutes and half an hour. Short enough that they soon get back to normal and long enough I can get work done.
I have never been afraid to try something new.
Keeping a smoker lit is a pain, but it's worth learning how to do it and it's worth doing it. NOT upsetting the bees by using smoke is less disrupting than getting them defensive. A defensive reaction they tend to take a week or so to get over. Smoke they take about half a hour to get over.
>I do cutouts in public places where you dont want bees flying at all because of the people passing by and the spray works better than the smoke.
For a cutout it probably does work better than smoke because you want them to get organized in the new location and bees with HBH on them smell like Nasonov which will help. NOT making the queen run is helpful in a cut out and smoke may make her run. I would probably prefer HBH spray when doing a cutout if it was in water. The bees get sticky enough during a cutout already, so I don't want them to get stickier by spraying syrup on them.