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GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



July 15 



Conversations with 

 Doolittle 



At Borodino 



CROSS BEES. 

 My bees, .since the harvest of white honey ended, 

 are cross and ugly. What can the matter be ? 



Perhaps you have allowed them to have 

 access to stolen sweets, so that they got to 

 robbing. If you want to make bees very 

 cross, let them have access to honey from 

 other hives while you are at work in the 

 apiary till they get to fighting, and finally 

 to robbing some of the weaker colonies; or 

 let them get into the honey-house and get 

 started there on your new honey, and you 

 will be sure to have a row. 



We once stored our section honey in a 

 room just off the sitting-room. The door to 

 the one in which the honey was stored 

 was supposed to be kept shut, and the win- 

 dows in the sitting-room were kept dark- 

 ened to keep out the flies at all times when 

 we did not occupy this room. The window 

 of the room in which the honey was stored 

 was also made dark by shutting the blinds, 

 for the same reason. One Sunday morning, 

 just before going to church, I went into the 

 honey-room for something, and in my hur- 

 ry left the door open when 1 came ovit. 

 While I was hitching up the horse Mrs. 

 Doolittle went into the sitting-room, leav- 

 ing the door open while in there for light. 

 This was at a time of a great dearth of nec- 

 tar, a few days after the basswood harvest 

 closed. Probably a bee or two came into 

 the sitting-room while she was there, hav- 

 ing smelled the newly stored honey in the 

 room; and as I had left the honey-room 

 door open, of course they found where the 

 stored sweets were. As we drove into the 

 yard after church we were greeted by angry 

 bees, and I had difficulty in getting the 

 horse into the barn. By covering our heads 

 with bags from the barn we found our way 

 to the house, and were glad to get inside the 

 kitchen. By peering through one of the 

 kitchen windows I discovered that the bot- 

 tom of (he sitting-room door, and nearly half 

 way up the front, was covered with bees 

 fighting to get in, while there were hun- 

 dreds taking wing, all the while carrying 

 off the honey. Around on the opposite side 

 of the house was another door not often 

 used, which led into an unused hallway. I 

 again covered my head, went to this door, 

 unlocked it, and went in. Arriving at the 

 sitting-room, for a moment I coidd see 

 nothing on account of the dark, but pres- 

 ently, as my eyes became accustomed to 

 this I discerned that there was a crack un- 

 der the bottom of the sitting-room door, 

 large enough to admit a bee the whole 

 width of the doorway. As my eyes became 

 still more accustomed to the dim light I 

 discovered a stream of bees nearly as wide 

 as the crack under the bottom of the door, 

 all traveling on foot in the dim light across 

 the sitting-room, through the door into the 



honey-room, up the walls to the honey 

 stored on shelves all around the room, not a 

 single bee taking wing, nor giving off a 

 sound — only a contented murmur. In all, 

 the bees tra\ eled not far from twelve feet to 

 the honey and the same number of feet back 

 to the crack under the tloor. 



jNIy first thought was to shut the honey- 

 room door; but I knew that would kill lots 

 of bees and make a bad mess of stickiness 

 and dead bees about the door, so I opened 

 the window-blinds from the outside on the 

 window to the honey-room. This immedi- 

 ately i>ut thousands of bees on this window; 

 and while they were collecting there I slip- 

 ped back to the sitting-room and opened the 

 door where the bees were going in at the 

 crack under the same. As soon as this was 

 done I took advantage of the bees going to 

 the light by flying each way, and shut the 

 door of the honey-room. As this door shut 

 tight, it stopped o])erations from the sitting- 

 room, and two hours later nearly all bees 

 had left going in at the open door. The 

 window was taken out from the outside, 

 when it was put back as soon as most of the 

 bees had been jarred from it, and before the 

 news was carried that there was another 

 way to the honey. An hour later the win- 

 dow was again taken out, when all of the 

 bees were gotten rid of. In all we had a 

 loss of about 200 lbs., and probably nearly 

 as much more by the honey being partly 

 carried out of the combs. 



But if there are no sweets exposed, you 

 may have been handling your bees improp- 

 erly. Bad handling is even worse than 

 robbing, for a bee made angry from reckless 

 handling will follow one around the apiary 

 for days and even weeks, stinging whenever 

 a chance is olTered, while the crossness com- 

 ing from robbing ceases with the end of 

 such thieving. I have known bees made so 

 cross by careless handling in taking off hon- 

 ey on a dark cloudy day in the middle of 

 the honey harvest, when there was no dis- 

 position to rob, that not a person could get 

 out of the door to the house on the side next 

 the bee-yard for a week without getting 

 stung. Let the bees alone as far as possible 

 till things quiet down, and then keep them 

 quiet by proper management. 



By a little careful attention any apiarist 

 will soon learn the disposition of each colo- 

 ny in the apiary. Some colonies will sub- 

 mit to all the needed manijjulations during 

 the season without smoke, or the use of a 

 veil. Others need both, while a few must 

 be thoroughly subdued with a volume of 

 smoke blown in at the entrance, before each 

 and every manii)ulation, and, failing here 

 on these colonies, and especially at a time 

 of scarcity of nectar, a row is sure to be the 

 result, with cross bees following about the 

 apiary for the next week or ten days. With 

 most colonies a puff or two of smoke blown 

 in at the entrance, to startle the guards, and 

 a puff or two over the tops of the frames or 

 the supers, when the cover is lifted, is all 

 that is needed. Don't try this on a very 

 vicious colony, however. 



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