>98 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



September, 1919 



HEADS OF GRAIN l^pMlHTDIFFERENinFIELDS" 



point of its sting in the queen's side so that 

 it stuck slightly when I crushed the bee 

 and pulled it away. Immediately the queen 

 acted differently from the way she had pre- 

 viously behaved. She seemed hardly able 

 to hold on to the comb; and her own bees, 

 either because of her condition, or because 

 I had held her in my fingers, gathered 

 around her in unusual numbers, feeding her 

 and massaging her with their tongues and 

 working over her. Then I noticed a small 

 welt on her side about the size of a small 

 pin head. This seemed to be about where 

 she appeared to' have been slightly stung. 

 At the time I took it for granted that it 

 was a slight swelling from the sting, but 

 since then I have somewhat doubted 

 whether that was possible. It may be that 

 the welt was there previously, and that I 

 had not noticed it. I expected her to curl 

 up and die within a few minutes. Her at- 



tendants, three or four minutes from the 

 time I had rescued her, covered her over 

 in their massaging and exceptional atten- 

 tions, and I did not like to disturb her; 

 but she was on an odd-sized frame that I 

 wanted to remove from her hive, and she 

 had to be removed to another frame. To do 

 this I drove her attendants away with a 

 little smoke and carefully placed her 

 among others of her own bees between two 

 brood-combs. She still seemed weak and 

 dazed. She was immediately surrounded by 

 a new retinue of nurses, that seemed to rec- 

 ognize her need of attention, and they re- 

 peated the performance of the bees from 

 which I had just removed her. I closed the 

 hive fully expecting to find her dead in 

 front of the hive the next day, but a few 

 days later I found her apparently as well 

 as ever and laving nicely. 



Seattle, Wash. H. H. Benton. 



THE BACK LOT BUZZER. 



The war is over, booze has vanai'd aivaii, an' thf wirnin have the vote. Maw says, "There's nothing 

 to worry about now but th' hives." 



