1885 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



705 



ail occurrence, or of saving life where the 

 symptoms are so severe. Lest any one be [ 

 frightened by it, liowever, I will say what I ' 

 have said before, that deaths from l)ee- ! 

 stings are nowhere near as common as deatlis 

 from accidents from horses. Accidents are li- 

 able to happen Avitli almost any kind of the 

 domestic animals; but for all tliat. we want to 

 see what can be done toward saving life. Had 

 our poor friend who lost lier life been accus- i 

 tomed to bees, or had had her thoughts , 

 about her, I hardly think she would liave 

 gone among them when they were stirred | 

 up, as they evidently must have been. I 

 have seen "^people push ahead into an apiary ^ 

 when / should have known, before 1 came 

 within several rods of the hives, that one j 

 Avould be sure to be stung if lie did not re- 

 treat. One who is familiar Avith bees learns , 

 to tell very (juickly when it is safe to go ' 

 among the hives. Another thing, when I 

 decide to go among angry bees I always 

 shield my face by pulling down my hat. and 

 putting my hands before my face. This 

 action alone seems to have considerable 

 effect in keeping the liees away from the 

 eyes and nostrils. I seldom get stung in the 

 face nowadays. If at all. it is on the back 

 of my neck or the back of my hands— possi- 

 bly on the ears or foreiiead. The swelling 

 from a bee-sting may obstruct the breath: 

 but usually in such cases, I think tliat with 

 sufficient presence of mind an attendant 

 ought to be able to keep tlie passage to the 

 windpipe open. In cases of swelling of^tlie 

 throat from quinzy. the handle of a siioon is 

 often used for tiiis puri)ose. It may be, how- 

 ever, as stated in the above clipping, that 

 deatii resulted from some other cause than 

 suffocation. 



It is a good thing to give jtlace to these 

 accounts, tliat ixMiplc may be warned, wliere 

 tliey are unaccustdini'd "to stings, or wliere 

 much pain and swelling follow, to be careful 

 about recklessly ex))osing themselves when 

 bees are infuriated from any cause, as they 

 must have been in the al)0ve'case. I do not 

 believe that I would resort to ammonia or 

 any thing, unless it is cloths wet in cold 

 water, to allay the fever. Of course, the 

 stings should be extracted i)r()mi)tly : but it 

 should be done without S(|iieezing"tlie con- 

 tents of the poison-bag into the wound. The 

 blade of a knife is often the i-eadiest means 

 of doing this. 



PREVENTING AFTER 

 AGAIN. 



BN page 600 I see Uro. Heddoii could not be per- 

 suaded to adopt my plan for iirevcntion of 

 after-swarms, and does not think any will tol- 

 erate it when once they " }?et the hang- " of 

 just how to use his method. Well, as far as 

 Bro. H. isCconccrned I presume I ought not to e.\- 

 pect him to even try the i)lan I gave, for he " can 

 not be persuaded " to try friend Roots chaff hives, 

 nor even the Simplicity size of the I,, frame. 

 Again, he must have Hcddon's hives, honey-boards, 

 shade-boards, nonerasivc crayons, and that 1.5 to 2.") 

 pound stone, all of his own, so I am content to let 



him have them, and to use his plans without fur- 

 th2r molestation; hut forthe benefit of those who use 

 chaff hives, tenement hives, house-apiaries, etc., I 

 wish to tell them how nice the plan I gave on page 

 .")57 works. Many have complained of the unwieidi- 

 ness of the chaff hive in swarming-time, and urged 

 that as a reason for not adopting it— especially the 

 ladies, who had nearly their match in trying to 

 move even an efght-frame Langstrotli hive. To all 

 such I would say, that I have come to the conclu- 

 sion that chaff' hives are an actual necessity for 

 outdoor wintering here at the North, and in the 

 future I e.xpect to use no others, except for those I 

 winter in my lyec-cellar. That the plan given on 

 page h'u gi\es all the advantages that Bro. Hed- 

 don's plan does, I think no one will deny; and it is 

 especiallj' adapted to chaff hives, as I have proven 

 during the past three seasons. The box used for 

 carrying the combs need not weigh over .i lbs., aud 

 a handle convenient for carrying can be readily at- 

 tached to it, so that any lady can use this plan with- 

 out fatigue, no matter what hive she uses, while the 

 chaff hives, large tenement hive, or the Townly 

 chatf-packed dry-goods boxes, are just as easy of 

 manipulation as any. In short, 1 have never used 

 any thing about the swarming of bees which 

 woiked so ijcrfectly, and pleased me so well, as this 

 plan for the prevention of after-swaruis. 



WHKliK Till-: IlKKS COMK KKO.M TO SW.\ltM ON THK 

 HEIJDO.N PLAN. 



On page ii.H.l Bro. Heddon wants to know. 

 •• Whence did that colony get bees to swarm with?" 

 rcferiing to a colony treated exactly as he says they 

 should be. Well, I will try to explain. When 1 

 Hrst began to try the removal |)lan to prevent 

 after-swarms, as given years ago, I noticed that 

 many colonies would often not stir at all for two or 

 three days, while others would commence to work 

 their new location at once; antl in either case such 

 a hive was sure to swarm. Once in a while one 

 would keep on giving off' bees, which left the hive 

 in a straight line, until the colony was fearfully 

 reduced, in which case no swarm would issue; but 

 these latter wen? the exception rather than the 

 rule. One other item bearing on this point: Sev- 

 eral years ago I ga\e in (Jlkanings how I was led 

 to form nuclei by taking a frame of brood, with 

 (jueen and bees fiom any hive, and placing it where 

 wished in any empty hive, the bees, as a rule, would 

 adhere to the iiueen; while if no queen was given, 

 all the bees th.nt could get back to the old hive 

 would do so. From this I learned that a colony 

 having cast a swarm looked upon their ((ueen-cells 

 the same as any other colony did on their queen, 

 after which I carried a frame of brood and bees 

 with a nearlj- ripe (lueen-cell, and |)laced in an 

 empty hive to form a nucleus, when in most cases 

 the bees would not return. Now, this has a direct 

 bearing in this locality on the moving of all hives 

 which are espeeialiy anxious about their queen or 

 cells. Just as soon as I would move a hive on the 

 Heddon jilan, the bees would stop issuing 

 from it in less than one minute after it was placed 

 on the new stand, and there they would stay 

 for two da.\s, when out would come a swarm. In 

 one instance T moved a hive in the middle of a 

 bright day, and immediately the bees stopped 

 drawing otf. For three days I watch(Ml to see a bee 

 leave or return to that hive, ami not ajbee was seen. 

 At ten o'clock the third day, or ten days from the 

 time the first swarm left, they swarnied again, 



