THE INTEREST IN INSECTS 



40 T 



lot to lose if those young women were 

 stung. I thought I should probably 

 be carried home in the ambulance after 

 the mob got done with me. But to 

 my surprise, as well as to that of the 

 spectators, although those young- 

 women were covered with honeybees, 

 not one was stung. The air was black 

 with flying bees. At first it seemed 

 as if the entire colony would go off. 

 The owner became alarmed, but I 

 could assure him because I had the 

 queen. I was confident that the bees 

 would return to the hive. Bees cov- 

 ered the ground and the people. Grad- 

 ually, however, they began to center 

 toward the entrance of the hive, and 

 the entire hive was coated with bees. 

 The people took them up by the hand- 

 fuls and did almost everything con- 

 ceivable with them. 



I know of nothing left for me to do 

 that is more daring and courageous 

 than that, and of nothing to demon- 

 strate more convincingly that bees, if 

 properly handled, are not disposed to 

 sting. If you know of any one else 

 who has dared to shake eighty thou- 

 sand honeybees over bare necks and 

 bare arms until they look as if they 

 have been peppered, I should like to 

 know who did it. If you know of any 

 "stunt," as the boys would say, that 

 could excel that as a public demonstra- 

 tion, please tell me what it is, and I 

 may at some time raise enough cour- 

 age' to try it. The people at Tell City 

 took the whole demonstration as a 

 matter of fact, as if I were going from 

 place to place and doing the same thing 

 every week. You will agree with me 

 that it was decidedly out of the ordi- 

 nary. It will take me some time to 

 accumulate courage enough to do it 

 again. Perhaps I shall never make an- 

 other such venture. I have frequently 

 had people put their hands into a mass 

 of bees, or take them up by the hand- 

 ful, and I have seen other demonstra- 

 tors do similar things; but never be- 

 fore have I seen eight young women 

 covered with bees, and the remarkable 

 demonstration made by totally ^ex- 

 perienced persons. The prerequisite 

 condition upon which I insisted was 

 that the fourteen volunteers must be 

 those who had never handled bees, and 

 from homes where bees are not kept. 

 ArcAdiA, Sound Beach, Ct. 



A Breastplate of Bees. 



Here is a novel chest protector that 

 in the estimation of many would be 

 more "hot" than agreeable. Mr. L. N. 

 Gravely of Ringgold, Virginia, had a 

 swarm of bees almost entirely covering 

 his breast. They were beginning to 

 work up toward his face when the 

 photograph was taken. Such handling 



"A CHEST PROTECTOR." 



of honeybees is and is not dangerous. 

 It all depends upon the way in which 

 it is done. Here were more than 

 enough bees to sting a horse to death 

 in five minutes ; comparatively few 

 would be needed to sting a man to 

 death, yet bees, like some other danger- 

 ous things, may be easily handled if 

 not done in a wrong way. The secret 

 is to be perfectly calm and gentle and 

 not to fight the bees. The reason why 

 most people are stung is because they 

 think stinging, and bees are in perfect 

 agreement, but when one thinks kind- 

 ness and gentleness the bees will re- 

 spond kindly and gently. But this is 

 not a universal rule. Any one that 

 takes off the cover of a hive, and thinks 

 all sorts of gentle and beautiful 



