54 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTUBE. 



Feb. 



my friends, I think I can take any one of you 

 into an apiary of 100 colonies, and have you 

 assist me all day long, without your getting 

 a single sting. Nay, farther ; if you are very 

 timid, and cannot bear a single sting, by tak- 

 ing some pains, you may be able to work day 

 after day, without being stung. The apiary 

 must be properly cared for, and no robbing 

 allowed, and you must do exactly as I tell 

 you. See anger of bees. It may be a 

 hard matter to tell you in a book how to be- 

 have without being stung, but I will try. In 

 the first place, avoid standing right in front 

 of any hive ; I am often very much tried 

 with visitors (some of them bee-keepers, too. 

 Who ought to know better), because they will 

 stand right before the entrance until they 

 have a small swarm scolding around them 

 because they cannot get out and in, and then 

 Wonder why so many bees are buzzing about 

 in that particular spot. If you should go in- 

 to a factory, and stand in the way of the 

 workmen until a dozen of them were blocked 

 lip with their arms full of boards and finish- 

 ed work, you would be pretty apt to be told 

 to get out of the way. Now you are to exer- 

 cise the same common sense in an apiary. 

 By watching them, you can tell, at once, 

 their path through the air, and you are to 

 keep out of their way. Bight back of any 

 hive is a pretty safe place to stand. 



One of the first things to learn is to know 

 Whether a bee is angry or not, by the noise he 

 makes. It seems to me you should all know by 

 the hum of a bee, when it is gathering honey 

 from the heads of* clover in the fields, that it 

 has no malice toward any living thing ; it is 

 the happy hum of honest industry and con- 

 tentment. People sometimes jump, when a 

 bee hums thus harmlessly along, and it 

 seems to me they should know better, but I 

 presume it is because bees are not in their 

 line of business, and they don't know "bee 

 talk." 



Well, when you go in front of a hive, or 

 even approach hives that are not accustomed 

 to being worked with, one of the sentinels 

 will frequently take wing, and by an angry 

 and loud buzz, bid you begone. This note 

 is (piite unlike that of a bee upon the flow- 

 ers, or of the ordinary laborer upon the 

 wing; it is in a high key, and the tone, to 

 me, sounds much like that of a scolding wo- 

 man, and one who will be pretty sure to 

 make her threats good, if you do not heed 

 the warning. AVhen one of - these bees ap- 

 proaches, you are first to lower your head, or 

 better still, tip down your hat brim; for 

 these fellows almost always instinctively aim 



for the eyes. lie will often be satisfied and 

 go back into his hive if you move away a lit- 

 tle, but you do not want to give him to un- 

 derstand that you admit yourself a thief, 

 and that he has frightened you. If he gets 

 1 very threatening, and you are timid, yon 

 would better go into some building. I am 

 in the habit of opening the door of the honey 

 house, and asking visitors to go in there, 

 when an angry bee persists in following 

 them. Very many times I can hardly get 

 them to go in as I direct, because they can- 

 not see why the bee will not follow them, 

 and thus have them cornered up and a sure 

 prey. 



I do not know why it is, but a bee very 

 seldom ventures to follow one in doors. A 

 single bee never does, if I am correct, but a 

 very vicious colony of hybrids, when fully 

 aroused, may do so. I have learned by hab- 

 it, to know just about when one of these 

 cross bees is ready to sting, and the greater 

 part of the time, I can catch them in the act 

 of inserting their stinger, before I am stung. 

 Sometimes I get a slight prick, but not often. 

 Where there has been no robbing going on, 

 one has usually warning enough, and in am- 

 ple time, to take precautions. Where the 

 bees are quietly at work, that is, during the 

 working season, there is but little danger 

 from bees in the air. When you are work- 

 ing with a hive, bending right over the un- 

 covered frames, you are comparatively se- 

 cure from the bees of other hives, for when 

 there is no robbing, bees seem to have no 

 disposition to meddle or hang around their 

 neighbors' homes. This is one reason why 

 bystanders, or those who are off at a little 

 distance, are so much more apt to be stung 

 than the apiarist who is right among them. 



HOW TO OPEN A HIVE, WITHOUT BEING 

 STUNG. 



Have your smoker lighted, and in good 

 trim, and then set it down near the hive you 

 are going to work with. Now, I would nev- 

 er use smoke with any hive of bees, unless 

 they need it to subdue them, for why should 

 we disturb and annoy the little fellows while 

 quietly going about their household duties, 

 unless we are obliged to? I frequently open 

 hive after hive, with no kind of use for 

 smoke at all, and yet I often see bee-keepers 

 drive the poor little chaps down to the bot- 

 toms of their hives with great volumes of 

 smoke, when they had not shown the least 

 symptom of any disposition but the most 

 friendly one. It is true, where the colony is 

 very large, the bees sometimes pile up in the 

 way, on the rabbets and ends of the frames, 



