Gentleness (Temperament)
Lexikon
Gentleness is one of the four classic traits of performance testing.
Gentleness is one of the four classic traits of performance testing. It refers to how the colony reacts to the beekeeper's intervention, meaning whether the bees stay calm or flare up, whether they fly at the beekeeper, and whether they sting.
It is assessed without smoke and without protective gloves at an open hive, so that the reaction becomes visible at all. Assessment follows a fixed scoring scale, with the best score given to the colony that shows itself completely unaffected, and the worst to one where working without protection is impossible. Assessment always happens in comparison to the other colonies in the same test group on the same day, because weather, forage and time of day strongly influence the reaction.
Context matters here: how strongly a trait is inherited depends on the population. In a population that is already very gentle, the remaining differences are small and heritability correspondingly low; in a sting-prone population it is high. Figures on heritability therefore cannot be carried over from one race to another.
For the practical beekeeper, gentleness is more than convenience. A sting-prone colony can simply be untenable at a site near housing, and the fastest way to improve it is requeening with a queen from gentle stock.