1885 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



559 



I agree with you in what you say; for I have 

 observed the same many times. In fact, I 

 have seen pieces of new dark comb as large 

 as my hand, because they were built between 

 two old black combs. I am glad you have 

 suggested this caution in regard to getting 

 our comb honey capped with white cappings. 

 Your suggestion, that we get whiter comb 

 honey by using the Heddoii honey-board, is 

 new to me. I have been struck with the re- 

 markable whiteness of a large lot of comb 

 honey just purchased. It was secured by 

 the ileddon system.— Thanks for your re- 

 port in regard to the sun wax-extractor. In 

 getting wax out of old lilack combs, don't 

 you think a wax-press described in the xV B C 

 would get it out pretty nearly V 



OLE FOGY NOT DEAD YET. 



HIS OPINION ON CLIPPING QUEENS, ETC. 



JT\ KO. KOOT:— I quote from page 530, Vol. 13 of 

 pjp Gleanings: "Friend S., in regard to bees 

 ^^ always alighting, that sentence caps the cli- 

 ■*^ max in helping us to decide that you are 

 greatly given to notions. Have you forgot- 

 ten the perfect hailstorm of facts rained upon the 

 head of poor Ole Fogy a year or two ago, and the 

 way in which we made him come out of his cover 

 and own up and take back his words?" 



Now turn to page 7tl, Vol. 11, and read Ole Fogy's 

 last article that he ever wrote on that subject, and 

 your own inevitable foot-note thereto, and I fan\!y 

 somebody else will have to " own up and take back." 

 That hailstorm of facts you speak of was a very 

 small matter, only a mist that nobody feared. t)h, 

 no! I still hold the fort, and e.xpeut to hold it till 

 there's a stronger battery opened against it than 

 ever has been yet. I took the position, that a 

 natural swarm issuing for titc flrsL time from n hive, 

 in a normal condition, never, never, never goes off 

 without first settling or clustering, providina alwaus 

 tliat there is a dixent place convenient for them to Kettle 

 on. I'm on that platform yet, and will stand on it 

 till it falls; and 1 am happy to know that the num- 

 ber is growing beautifully smaller and smaller eve- 

 ry year, of those superstitious people who think they 

 must be on hand when their bees swarm, to make 

 all the noise and contusion they possibly can with 

 horns and bells, tin pans, and even looking-glasses 

 and shot-guns, to keep their bees from going to the 

 woods " mit out scttlin." Others, again, just as un- 

 reasonable, but ashamed, perhaps, to be making 

 such a racket for their neighbors to hear, quietly 

 go to work and cut off the queen's wing so she can 

 not fly; and don't you know that, if you have your 

 queen's wings cropped you have got to watch them 

 closer than if they were not cropped at all— I mean 

 in swarming time? I want no cropped queens in 

 mine; do you hear? Ole Fogy. 



Allendale, Ills., Aug. 5, 1885. 



Friend F., it seems as if there were a cou- 

 nleof us who have been careless or forgetful. 

 While you have Vol. 11 in hand and open, 

 reading p. 741, just turn two leaves more and 

 read page 745; also notice b(>low. the ''foot 

 note.' — In regard to the editorial you refer 

 to, please notice that friend Salisbury says, 

 "■Bees alivays alight."'' lie doesn't specify 

 first or second swarms, or name any condi- 

 tion, as you do. 



MY EXPERIENCE WITH THE BEE- 

 POISON. 



BY REV. L. L. LiANGSTROTH. 



JN 1838 1 put two colonies of bees in an attic closet, 

 but I made no experiments of any kind with 

 them; they were simply looked at and admired. 

 In 1839 I fairly .began my apiarian career, and 

 soon found that to experiment much with bees, 

 meant to get many stings. At first these were not 

 only quite painful, but caused severe swellings. I 

 dreaded to be stung the latter part of the week, for 

 often one eye would close and the other nearly so, 

 and to preach in such a condition was by no means 

 a pleasure. If stung on the hand, my whole arm 

 would swell so rapidli' that if my coat was not 

 seasonably taken off, it had to be ripped off. In 

 short, I was a regular martyr to the bee-poison. 



My second year's experience was much more 

 favorable, and in the course of a few years I be- 

 ijame almost bee-proof. In the pressure of busi- 

 ness, and my zeal for studying the habits of the 

 bee, I preferred to be stung occasionally, rather 

 than to lose time by wearing a bee-hat. The pain 

 of a sting was seldom very severe, and not often 

 caused much swelling. My experience was the 

 same with that of most bee-keepers who had per- 

 severed in spite of stings, until at last their systems 

 became accustomed to the poison.* 



A few facts out of many that might be given: I 

 once agreed to help a farmer to move a hive to a 

 new location. He assured me that the bottom- 

 board was securely fastened. It fell off before we 

 had got more than a few steps with our load — 

 covered with bees, some of which were crushed — 

 and the air at once was filled with the enraged in- 

 sects. The farmer dropped his side of tlie hive and 

 ran away; it fell against me, but I held on until I 

 lowered it to the ground; and then made the best 

 of my way into the house. Perhaps a hundred or 

 more stings were pulled out of my face and headl 

 and yet in a few hours one could hardly have notic- 

 ed that I had been stung at all. When visiting that 

 great man, Dr. Jarcd P. Kirtland, of Cleveland, 

 Ohio, he wished me to examine with him a colony of 

 bastard (hybrid) bees. The doctor was armed with 

 bee-hat and gloves — both of which I declined to 

 use. We quieted them pretty well with smoke, when 

 he began to discuss some point in bee culture with 

 his usual animation. Soon his gesticulating hand 

 was doingquite a business, the bees became furious, 

 and paid all their respects tome; and how many 

 stings were pulled out of my face and head I can 

 not tell. As soon as this extracting work was over, 

 I said: "Doctor Kirtland, I protest against all 

 eloquence in the vicinity of bee-hives — especially 

 when you are clad in proof armor, and I have none 1" 

 Although ever so well stung, the pain was soon 

 over, and in a short time no visible proof remained 

 that a bee had stung me. 



In 1874, after the death of my son, my health be- 

 came so impaired that I sold all my bees. The next 

 spring an entire change seemed to have come over 

 me with respect to the bee-poison. I first noticed 

 it in extracting some stings with the poison-sac at- 

 tached, for a friend who wished to procure the bee- 

 poison in a perfectly pure state. I had noticed at 



*The Austrian who came over with Mr. S. B. Parsons' Italian 

 bees, when stnng, would leisurely take out of his pocket a 

 viiil to anoint the sting with his favorite remedy! Seeinj? how 

 imiifferent Mr. Gary, myself and others were to stings, be 

 soon ceased to produce the vial. 



