1890 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



499 



honey in their liives as any other calony in 

 the apiary. I shall be very glad to believe 

 that the six or seven colonies of these bees 

 we have tested heretofore have not been a 

 true type of this race. 



SOLAR WAX-EXTRACTOR. 



A short time ago we bought about two 

 dozen hybrid colonies, on natural-built 

 combs. The latter were so poorly built out 

 that we put them in upper stories above 

 the queen-excluding zinc, with the queen 

 and a majority of the bees below. After 

 the brood hatches we put them in the solar 

 wax-extractor. We have been using it ev- 

 ery day. The solar wax-extractor is cer- 

 oue of the conveniences in a well - kept 

 apiary. 



CROSS BEES ; A LIVELY FRACAS. 



For experimental purposes, one of our 

 hybrid colonies we had decided to change 

 from one hive to another. After the combs 

 were transferred, as is usually the case, 

 there were quite a lot of bees clinging to the 

 inside of the hive. As we have done a good 

 many times before, we inverted the old hive 

 before the entrance of the new one, and 

 gave it a bump to jar the bees out in front 

 of the entrance. Then a lively fracas en- 

 sued. Almost every one of those bees flew 

 up into the air immediately, and began 

 stinging vigorously. In fact, the air seem- 

 ed to be black with them. I confess I do 

 not like to run from bees when I have a veil 

 on ; but having only a thin coat on, the 

 little scamps punctured my back and arms 

 right and left. I finally took to the ever- 

 greens in inglorious haste, leaving our apia- 

 rist, Mr. SpafEord, to take care of himself. 

 To get rid of the bees I circled around the 

 evergreen trees two or three times. After 

 coming back to the old place I found that 

 Mr. Spaflord had got his smoker, and was 

 making free use of smoke. Now, it so hap- 

 pened that there was a small hickory-tree 

 back of this row of evergreens ; and very 

 soon, very much to our horror, we heard the 

 cry of children. Mr. S. and I both ran to 

 the tree, and found that Iluber and his play- 

 mate Mattie were pretty near the top of the 

 tree, and those hybrids, evidently, had left 

 us and attacked those helpless children with 

 bare legs and bare heads. Erantic with 

 pain they clambered from one limb to 

 another. I yelled to Huber to jump into 

 Mr. Spafford's arms, and then I ran for the 

 other boy. He was then ten or twelve feet 

 up the tree. When he was within about 

 eight feet I called out to him to jump. He 

 hesitated a moment, and then finally did as 

 I requested. I caught him safely in my 

 arms. By doing this we left the bees eight 

 feet up in the air, buzzing around whence 

 their victim had suddenly disappeared. 

 Huber, fortunately, had received only one 

 sting ; but Mattie was stung something 

 over a dozen times about the face, head, and 

 neck. The probjibilities are, that the bees 

 attacked Mattie first, and, drawn on by the 

 scent of the poison, they began giving 

 him an unfair dose. After reaching the 

 ground safely, the boys needed no invita- 

 tion to swamper to the house, which they 



did, followed by your humble servant. Both 

 boys were crying with pain. I quickly re- 

 moved the stings by scratching them out, 

 without pressing the poison-bag. There 

 were so many stings in Mattie's hair that I 

 was forced to resort to a fine comb. We 

 finally removed them all, and his face was 

 bathed, and he was taken home. The 

 stings had no other effect than to give him 

 a good big swelled head and fat cheeks. 

 Iluber had received only one sting, and it 

 did him no very serious injury. For some 

 reason, Iluber is very sensitive to the effect 

 of the poison. His mother thinks, if he 

 had been stung as much as Mattie was, it 

 would have killed him. However that may 

 have been, we are glad that it was no worse 

 than it was. Mattie has been stung a good 

 many times, but does not seem to be affect- 

 ed much by the poison. 



After removing the stings I went back into 

 the apiary, and found the air was full of 

 mad bees. I carefully adjusted my veil and 

 went out among them again, having first 

 prepared myself with a couple of flat boards, 

 about 10 by lo in. These I clapped togeth- 

 er, cymbal fashion, in such a way as to kill 

 half a dozen at every stroke. I continued 

 this for ten or fifteen minutes, until I killed 

 all or nearly all the mad bees. The apiary 

 again became quiet, and all was well. 



One other time, by some little hook or 

 crook we had gotten the bees stirred up so 

 that the air was literally black with the in- 

 furiated insects. We did nothing further 

 than to close the hive up at the time, and 

 avoid that part of the apiary as much as 

 possible. There was a whole week that we 

 could not go anywhere near that hive. They 

 stung every thing and everybody that 

 chanced to come within a few yards of 

 them ; and for two or three weeks after, 

 they gave us more or less trouble. After 

 the recent occurrence above related, I con- 

 cluded that all the angry bees were proba- 

 bly in the air ; and that, if they were going to 

 be troublesome for a week or more, and pos- 

 sibly sting a valuable horse, or get after 

 more children, they might just about as 

 well die then as at any other time, and so I 

 proceeded to kill them as above stated. Mr. 

 Spaflord was in another part of the apiary 

 working, and he told me afterward, as he 

 saw me with the two boards clapping and 

 smashing the bees that were about me, that 

 there was a literal swarm about my head. 

 I stood and kept killing the bees until they 

 were all dead. The apiary was then as 

 quiet as ever, ^nd we have had no annoy- 

 ance since. 



It is a well-known fact, that one or two 

 angry bees will follow an apiarist about the 

 whole day, and possibly annoy him other 

 days, if they are not killed. Killing them 

 puts an end to the annoyance, and allows 

 the apiarist to go about his work among his 

 bees with his veil raised up, enjoying all the 

 comfort he has a right to have. It does not 

 pay to let those angry fellows live after 

 they are so thoroughly stirred up. 1 pre- 

 sume I must have killed, at a rough guess, 

 some 2(J0 or 800 bees ; and what was the loss 

 of that many bees compared to the continuj.* ' 

 al annoyance of being stung every time arty 



