Reading PJ Chandler's "The Barefoot Beekeeper"

[doodlemaier]

"Another fun sensory beekeeping experience is to try to smell the breath of your hives. Each will have its own unique 'body odor' and you may also find you can tell if honey is being made, and if they have much brood. You should enjoy and animal-fur smell reminiscent of a clean mink coat, plus a hint of lemon-grass (nasanov pheromone) plus a teak-hinting-vanilla woody scent (this is the smell of queen-rightness, queen mandibular pheromone and retinue pheromone are chemically similar to the benzoin perfume -fixative that this smell somewhat resembles). You are of course familiar with the floral-acidy-sweet smell of honey production, and the resin-smells of your local propolis. The presence of a lot of brood adds a milk/cream odor to the mix. A healthy productive hive smells wonderful. Aside from being enjoyable, smelling the stream of ventilated air from the hives is also good practice because if you take note of the normal smell you will immediately notice if their is mould, wax moth, or foulbrood"

~Kale Kevan (contributor to www.biobees.com forum)