20 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTUEE. 



Jan. 



pear in from 2 to 12 hours ; the bees will then 

 starve in the hive, or go home with the pil- 

 lagers, or scatter about and die. This is not 

 all ; when the passion is fully aroused, they 

 will not hesitate to attack the strongest 

 stocks, and you will find your bees stung to 

 death in heaps, before the entrances. This 

 may, after a spell, put a stop to it, but I have 

 seen them push ahead until every hive in the 

 apiary was in an uproar, and it seemed as if 

 every bee had gone crazy, sure. At such 

 times, the robbers will attack passers by, in 

 the streets, and even venture an attack on 

 cats, dogs, aye, and hens and turkeys too. 

 Like the American Indians when infuriated 

 at the sight of blood, every bee seems to 

 have a demoniacal delight in selling his life, 

 by inflicting all the torments he possibly can, 

 and feels sad because he cannot do any more 

 mischief. 



The account below, taken from page 224 of 

 Gleanings for 1877, illustrates very vividly 

 what I have tried to describe. 



I send you a paper, the Valley Herald, published at i 

 our county seat, which has a little article on "Bees 

 on a Rampage." I would be glad to hear your views 

 on the subject. What caused those bees to act so, ! 

 &c? John W. Hoodenpyle. 



Looney's Creek, Tenn., July 10, 1877. 



BEES ON A RAMPAGE. 



Mr. Elisha Tate, who lives some tifteen miles from | 

 this place on the head of Battle Creek, met with j 

 quite a singular misfortune on the 19th inst. He 

 has, or did have at that time, about twenty hives of 

 bees, and on that day, while all were away from the ] 

 house except a daughter and the baby, the bees be- . 

 came mad from some cause or other, left the hives in I 

 large swarms and commenced to sting every living j 

 thing on the place. They attacked the daughter, j 

 who fled from the house, leaving the babe on the 

 bed. A fine jack was stung to death in the stable; j 

 all the chickens were killed, and a sheep, that was ] 

 around the house, was stung so badly on the nose 

 that that organ swelled to huge dimensions, causing 

 death by suffocation. The cries of the daughter 

 brought Mr. Tate to the house, and he proceeded to 

 rescue his babe, which he found literally covered 

 with bees; and we understand that it was with great 

 difficulty that its life was saved. Mr. T. attempted 

 to destroy the bees at night by piling fodder on the 

 hives and setting fire to it, but it only served to 

 again arouse them and they attacked the family 

 and compelled them to abandon their house and go 

 to a neighbor's. 



No one can account for the strange occurrence. 

 Some think that a snake must have visited the 

 hives, as it is known that bees have the greatest an- 

 tipathy toward snakes. 



In all probability, the account is consider- 

 ably exaggerated, as such things usually are 

 before they get into the papers, but it affords 

 an excellent lesson nevertheless on the re- 

 sults of letting bees get into a habit of rob- 

 bing each other, or of finding honey scattered 

 about the premises. I tried, in anger of 

 bees, to illustrate it, but the above does it 

 still better. The worst season seems to be 

 after basswood is over, and the bees seem to 

 get especially crazy, if they even get a smell 

 of this aromatic honey left carelessly about 

 the hives. One who has never seen such a 

 state of affairs, can have but little idea of 



the furious way in which they sting every- 

 thing and everybody. The remedy is to get 

 a kettle of coals and put in enough chips or 

 sawdust to make a "big smoke ;" carry this 

 out among the hives and proceed to close 

 every hive that shows any symptoms of be- 

 ing robbed. Shut up every bit of honey 

 where not a bee can get at it, and do your 

 work well, for at such times they will wedge 

 into, and get through, cracks that would 

 make one think inch boards were hardly pro- 

 tection enough. Just before dark, let all the 

 robbers go home, and be up betimes next 

 morning to see that all entrances are close 

 and small, and that all the hives are bee 

 tight. An experienced hand will restore 

 peace and quietness in a very short time, in 

 such a demoralized apiary. Black bees are 

 much worse than Italians, for the latter will 

 usually hold their stores against any number 

 of assailants ; good, strong, well made hives, 

 filled with Italians, with plenty of brood in 

 each, will be in little danger of any such 

 "raids,'' although we have seen the wounded 

 and slain piled up in heaps before robbers 

 would desist and give up trying to force an 

 entrance. 



The love of honey, my friends, is by far 

 more potent than "snakes'' in demoralizing 

 an apiary. I do not think bees have any par- 

 ticular enmity to them. 



There is one more point ; if in uncapping 

 drone brood, or in cutting out brood to rear 

 queens, you leave the cappings or bits of 

 comb scattered about, the bees will get a 

 taste of the milky fluid and juices of the 

 brood, and it seems to craze them worse than 

 j honey even, if that is possible. Below is a 

 letter illustrating it. 



CROSS BEES. 



I had some of the crossest bees this summer that 

 were ever heard of. They would fight the top of a 

 stovepipe that runs up through a shed roof; there 

 would be 50 or 100 bees at once, just whackine- 

 against that pipe, and very many fell into it and 

 burned to death. They would dive into my smoke- 

 pan, and burn up in that, and sting folks along the 

 road. What the cause was I could not imagine, but 

 at last I happened to think. I had been destroying 1 

 drone brood, and when it was in a milky state I 

 could not shake it out of the combs; the bees would 

 eat it and it just made them crazy and ugly. Well, 

 1 always want to be sure about anything, so 1 left it 

 off for awhile and they became peaceable again. On 

 again giving them access to the milky brood, the 

 same result followed. I suppose you will laugh, but 

 I am well satisfied that this and this only, was the 

 cause of the fierceness of the bees. D. Gardner. 



Carson City, Mich., Nov. 9, 1877. 



PREVENTION OF ROBBING. 



Beginners are very apt to say that the bees 

 must rob some, that there is no such thing 

 as preventing it absolutely. They say honey 

 will get daubed about, on the door knobs, on 

 the posts, and on the ground, and that it can- 

 not be helped ; that the bees will rob after 



