Simon Ford
As someone who is privileged to 'keep' bees I have to say there is a wide variety of tones they produce, the relatively normal buzz of a swarm, gorged on honey looking to establish a new colony is very different from the angry frenetic buzz of a bee trying to ward you away when you invade their home. Possibly the most relaxing sound I have heard them produce is the low contented buzz of them fanning their nectar late on a summers evening whilst making honey. All in all, and I have not recorded and analysed this, I would say the range is at least an octave. Furthermore when there are 20,000+ bees all buzzing they do tend to produce a buzzy hubub with a variety of tones. A thought - that as far as I am aware has not been researched; when they do the waggle dance in order to inform their sisters of food sources, they produce a variety of different buzzes. I wonder if they, in part, communicate this way... Recording the is difficult as there is usually a lot of ambient noise, birds, cars etc. I might give it a go this year and see what happens....
