I haven't seen any evidence of ball pythons being nearly intelligent for positive reinforcement. That would require them to correlate events. Do snakes move when they are getting burned? or a rat is eating them alive? I would imagine pain would be something you would deal with if you could figure out what was causing it. Then even if they could, what would be seen as positive? An asf scented meat cube? Even their feeding habits are very primal, I don't see us being able to do something for them that gets their happy brain chemicals flowing. I also don't see them being able to correlate bad behavior anyways, so if you want to put your snake back after a bite, imo go ahead.
I don't even know if handling them a bunch is even necessary. I mean sure snakes with more interaction seem to handle better than ones that have less interaction as a general statement. However I do have snakes that their only interaction is cleaning cages and feeding time and they handle just as well as the ones I take out more. I find more that the older the snake is plays a bigger factor than the amount of handling. I just always assumed that was because the bigger they are the less threatened they feel. Besides that the other difference between my snakes would just be their personalities. I have snakes that hide all day and then I have snakes that pace the front of their cage begging for food, even if they ate the day before. The ones out and about tend to handle better.
I'm not saying handling them more often wouldn't make them handle better overall, but size and personality seem to be much bigger factor in my experience.
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