Guild Wars 2

I discovered the choir bells last night, and immediately put them to use in WvW, charging down an enemy and wildly swinging the bells while my teammates downed him. The thrill of this hunt put some wild ideas into my head about having choir bell groups in WvW to taunt the enemies.

Today I was distraught to find that the choir bells were immediately disabled if you were attacked by an enemy.

I have two questions and a request:
Are enemies able to hear your choir bells?
Was this disabling of choir bells in combat intended to avoid such obnoxious behaviour on my part? If not, would it be possible to make it so that choir bells stay active in combat?