March 28, 1901. 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL, 



199 



hands, and nose, Mr. Bond, when I am busy with a hive of 

 bees, I wear a veil to protect them. When a man tells me — 

 even if he is an old bee-keeper — that he never wears a veil 

 in his apiary work, and that he never gets stung-, I am dis- 

 posed to think that he is talking thru his last year's hat. 



"Now come with me to my honey-house and I will see 

 what I can do for your nose, Mr. Bond. I use alcohol for 

 bad stings— red-hot ones, like the one you got on your nose 

 — when I use anything at all. I will let you try it. 



" Here," I said, after we had entered the room in the 

 honey-house that I called my workshop, " I always keep a 

 bottle of alcohol for emergencies. A small sponge saturated 

 with some of it and applied to your nose for about ten min- 

 utes will relieve the pain and reduce the swelling. I think 

 the alcohol neutralizes the formic acid in the sting-wound." 



"Now, please tell me," said Mr. Bond, after several 

 minutes silence, " why I got stung the minute I stept in 

 front of that hive you were working at, and you, with your 

 hands and your nose right down among the bees, wasn't 

 toucht." 



"That's easily explained, Mr. Bond," I replied. "I 

 account for it in this way : My bees know me. They are 

 accustomed to my presence and to my manipulations. You, 

 on the other hand, are a stranger. They know you as such 

 by sight and smell. Then, to make bad worse, you plant 

 your perspiring person directly in front of their only door, 

 and so near that they can't help but regard you as an in- 

 truder, with evil intention toward them. There are always 

 a number of bees on guard at the entrance of their hive, 

 and these guards are very vigilant. No doubt they saw you 

 at once, and one of them took aim at your face and struck 

 j'our nose. A hot sting like that is never an accidental 

 one, I can assure you. It's a good rule never to stand in 

 front of a hive of bees, or even to walk past near the en- 

 trance unless you can't possibly do otherwise." 



" I believe in that rule implicitly since my late experi- 

 ence," remarkt Mr. Bond. " But, will you now tell me why 

 those bees that followed me to the cellar left me as soon as 

 I got inside the door ?" 



" They left you because bees never go into a dark room 

 if they can help it — except, perhaps, to steal honey — and, 

 because they were satisfied as soon as you were out of sight 

 when you got there. And here let me mention the fact for 

 your benefit, that a person who is being stung and followed 

 by a lot of angry bees can do nothing that so promptly and 

 completely defeats them as to run into a room. A dark 

 room, of course, is best, but any room will do better than to 

 run about outside vainly fighting them. They give up 

 as soon as they find themselves prisoners — always and 

 everywhere." 



" That's a very interesting fact to know," remarkt Mr. 

 Bond; "but I don't quite understand what you mean by 

 saying, ' my bees know me.' You don't mean by that that 

 bees in general have sense, do you ?" 



"Yes, Mr. Bond, I certainly believe that bees have 

 sense. But my belief is surely not orthodox, for, everybody 

 — even the vast majority of bee-keepers — give bees credit 

 for a high degree of instinct, and nothing more. But can 

 you tell me what instinct really is ? Can anybody tell me 

 what the distinction is between instinct and intuition ? By 

 intuition we know things as by instinct. That is, intuition 

 is knowledge which is not acquired thru the reasoning pro- 

 cess. No one can prove that bees can not and do not rea- 

 son. I can mention several things that bees do that they 

 couldn't and wouldn't do by instinct alone. Here, for in- 

 stance, is a sample of their work " — taking a pound section 

 of white-clover honey from an open crate near me and hold- 

 ing it up before him as I spoke. " Examine it and see if it 

 isn't perfect in every detail. See how white and even the 

 comb is, and how beautifully it is fastened to the wood of 

 the section all around. When they put that honey into 

 those cells it was not honey, but nectar, or sweet water, 

 very little thicker than water. They converted it into 

 honey, thick as the best sugar syrup, by evaporating it. 

 And how, do you suppose, do they know that evaporation is 

 necessary ? and how do they do it ? They know by in- 

 stinct, I suppose, and they seem to know, too, that fanning 

 the open cells of sweet water will thicken it to its proper 

 consistency. 



" The bees seem to have sense enough, too, to under- 

 stand that this fanning work is best done during the night, 

 when all the nectar gathered for the day is stored in the 

 combs, when the hive needs extra ventilation on account of 

 the heat caused by the whole colony being at home, and 

 because it saves precious time. It's the bees that do the 

 work of gathering the nectar that must also do the evapor- 

 ating work. Drones will not do it, because it's work, I 



presume ; and the baby bees in the hive can't do it before 

 they have learned to fly. 



" Now, Mr. Bond," I continued, " look at the surface of 

 this comb. You see it is perfectly smooth and regular, and 

 almost snow white. I have 1,600 like this stored in my 

 honey-room just beyond the partition, all filled and sealed 

 like this, since the first of this month, by 16 colonies. You 

 see, they not only know how to work, but how to do the best 

 kind of work. They make no mistakes, and they never 

 seem to forget anything. One of the most curious things 

 about this comb work is, that there is an air-space between 

 the honey and the wax with which the surface of the comb 

 is covered, or sealed. How they manage to produce this 

 air-space, and how they know it to be necessary, are bee- 

 secrets which have never been whispered into inquisitive 

 ears. But bee-keepers do know that, but for this air-space, 

 that beautiful white surface of the comb would be an im- 

 possibility, because without it the honey would come in con- 

 tact with the wax, soon softening it, causing it to break up 

 and let the honey ooze out. You can see how important 

 this little item becomes when you realize the fact that with 

 this air-space omitted by the bees, shipping comb honey to 

 the markets would be out of the question. We would be 

 limited to extracted or liquid honey." 



Before I could proceed to explain further, Mr. Bond 

 suddenly jumpt to his feet and lookt anxiously out of the 

 window that afforded a view of the apiary and the street 

 beyond. I knew what the movement meant, and could 

 afford to smile as I said : 



" You are anxious about your horses, Mr. Bond. Well, 

 you needn't be. My boy put them into the stable and fed 

 them soon after the fracas. If you will go with me to the 

 house, we will now have some dinner, and I will show you 

 my wife and children. Then, if you care for another dose 

 of bee-talk, I shall be glad to have you spend the afternoon 

 in the shop with me. I have a lot of sections to put together 

 and prepare with comb foundation, and I can talk while I 

 work." 



(To be continued.) 



REV. J. D. GEHRING. 



The subject of this sketch was born Dec. IS, 1837, at 

 Buchberg, situated at the foot of an isolated haystack- 

 shaped mountain bearing the same name. It is presumed 

 that the mountain existed before the town, hence it is also 

 presumable that the town was named for the mountain. 



From the top of this mountain the snow-clad Alps could 

 be seen. The famed " Rhinefall " at Schaffhausen, Switz- 

 erland, is within hearing distance of Buchberg. 



His father, at the age of 60, emigrated to the United 

 States in 1848, with wife and eleven children, and bought a 

 small farm in Fulton County, Ohio. 



Mr. Gehring enlisted as a private in Co. C, 27th Wis. 

 Vol. Infantry, served three years, and was mustered out a 

 1st lieutenant, and as a cripple for life. Disability was 

 caused, mainly, by a sharp-shooter's " minnie ball," which 

 past thru the back of his neck, fracturing the vertebra, and 

 resulting in partial paralysis of the left side. Other serious 

 results developt as time made history and old age. 



He began keeping bees in Parkville, Mo., in 1884, 

 started with two colonies, both presents from friends who 

 didn't know what to do with them, and were anxious to get 

 them out of the way for fear of getting stung. Transfer- 

 ring these two colonies to "movable-frame hives," and 

 handling over 300 pounds of white-clover honey, in pound 

 sections, the first season, persuaded his then easily impressi- 

 ble mind to believe that he had now ceast to be a keeper of 

 bees, g.nd had become a bee-keeper instead. Mr. Gehring 

 keeps his front door latch-string always hanging outside 

 for visiting " friends" of the ancient craft. 



Thru a somewhat remarkable combination of circum- 

 stances he and Miss Anna J. Doty were brought together 

 in 1866, and have continued the happy union as husband 

 and wife into this the 20th century. Five children — four 



