THE INTEREST IN INSECTS 



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When Bees Will Sting and when they 

 Will Not. 



A friend has sent me a newspaper 

 clipping that descants on the pleasures 

 and profits of bee-keeping, and says 

 that "swarming bees never sting." My 

 friend asks, "Is that true?" 



It is not. Any confiding person who 

 depends upon that statement will get 

 stung. Floating about in various news- 

 papers and magazines, and sometimes 

 in periodicals that should know better, 

 are statements as to why bees sting 

 and why they do not sting, and how to 

 prevent them from stinging. We seem 

 to be affected by a craze for getting 

 money out of our surroundings in 

 suburbs and country, and newspapers 

 and magazines welcome articles that 

 tell us how we can pay off the mort- 

 gage by keeping a few honeybees, 

 frogs, chickens or skunks. It is the ob- 

 ject of these writers to show as lucidly 

 as possible that the bee will not sting, 

 nor the frog jump, nor the chicken peck 

 at you, nor the skunks offend your 

 olfactory sense, provided only that you 

 know how to handle them and do it 

 at the proper time. In various parts 

 of the country and before crowds of 

 people, I have made remarkable exhi- 

 bitions in handling bees. I have taken 

 out the frames from as many as seven 

 hives, and have passed about among a 

 company of one hundred and twenty- 

 five teachers the seventy frames, with 

 probably more than half a million 

 honeybees held in hand or flying in the 

 air. I have had bees shaken over my 

 head, I have poured them by the quart 

 over ladies' bare arms. I have placed 

 little children on platforms before large 

 audiences and poured a pint of bees 

 into the lap of each, and the children 

 petted those bees as they would pet 

 kittens. I have taken men, women 



and children who were ignorant of the 

 habits of honeybees, to the hives, and 

 had them pass out the frames without 

 the use of veil or gloves. 



"But isn't it dangerous?" "Are you a 

 "How do you stupify 



magician 



them?" "When do you hypnotize 

 them ?" "How do you know they won't 

 sting?" These are some of the many 

 questions asked me at such exhibitions. 

 There is no special time. I do not 

 stupify them. I am not a magician. 

 Bees will sting, and sting severely at 

 swarming time or at any other time, 

 but there are certain times, and certain 

 days, and certain colonies known al- 

 most intuitively to one who has had 

 experience with bees, on which and by 

 which the operator will be stung only 

 rarely or not at all. 



Only a few days ago a club of boy 

 scouts arrived at Arcadia, and though 

 none of them had had any experience 

 with honeybees, and some had never 

 seen any bees in hives, I took them to 

 the apiary, where I at once opened a 

 hive and passed out the ten frames. 

 The bovs held the frames and handled 

 them, without aid from me and with- 

 out gloves or veil. 



It is simply a matter of self-confi- 

 dence and self-control. I firmly be- 

 lieve that from a variety of things in 

 this world we get just what we expect, 

 or are paid in the same coin with which 

 we pay. Go to the bees at swarming 

 time or at any other time, in a nervous, 

 fighting state of mind, slap at the first 

 one that comes near you, and you will 

 be stung. But go with calmness and 

 self-composure, and with gentle, kindly 

 motions, and though you may not es- 

 cape, you will, by this method, surely 

 minimize the chances of injury. But 

 there is never a time when it is impos- 

 sible for the bees to sting. When you 



