384 



part it has got hold of, is that the pain is 

 most severe at first, and keeps on diminish- 

 ing until it has freed itself, when a slight 

 rub will let you breathe normal again, and 

 you will hardly know that you have been 

 stung. 



Strand, N. S. Wales, Australia. 



rO BEES LOSE THEIR STINGS WHEN STINGING 

 OTHER BEES? 



My experience leads me to say they do 

 not as a rule. I have watched them close- 

 ly, and apparently they insert only the ex- 

 treme tips of the sting. Now and again one 

 appears to get the sting too far in; and 

 when they find themselves caught they ap- 

 pear to be panic-stricken, and make frantic 

 efforts to withdraw the sting, with the result 

 that they tear it out of their own bodies. 

 If a bee stings a man, and is let alone, it 

 Avill sometimes turn round and round; and 

 apparently, by making the hole large 

 enough, will be able in a short time to with- 

 draw the sting; but I never saw them do 

 this when attached to another bee. 



Ma.ior Shallard. 



South Woodburn, N. S. Wales, Australia. 



BEES do not always LOSE THEIR STINGS. 



I have just read what Mr. Waugh says, 

 p. 778, Dec. 1. When I kept pure black 

 bees in box hives they always had a lot of 

 drones. Many times I have seen the ground 

 covered with dead drones, and they did not 

 have any stings in them. Since I have been 

 keeping the yellow bees I never see any dead 

 drones. One day last summer I was extract- 

 ing honey when a large bumblebee got inside 

 of the screen cloth over the window. There 

 were also a lot of bees there. When the 

 bumblebee would get close to one it would 

 try to catch it, but it would always get 

 away. I thought I would have a little fun, 

 so I put the bumblebee in a bunch of bees. 

 They soon covered it. They had a tussle 

 for a few seconds. It soon got loose from 

 all but one, which held on for some time. 

 In a few seconds after the last bee released 

 it it was dead, and not a sting in it. 



I wonder how many of the Gleanings 

 readers can say that thei'e have been bees 

 at their homes since 1838. The year that 

 my mother was born in (1838), grandfather 

 bought a colony in a box hive. He would 

 always choose a few of the best colonies to 

 keep, and kill the rest with sulphur. He 

 followed this plan till his death in 1879. 

 Mother kept up his plan till I began to care 

 for the bees about 1885. I soon after adopt- 

 ed the plan of robbing them, as it was call- 

 ed. I kept this up until I began to use the 

 frame hive in 1900, and it was the same 



gleanings IN dee CULTURE 



stock too. Mother never knew what it was 

 to be on a place without bees, as they were 

 brought here the year she was born. She 

 lived in the house that she was born in till 

 her death this year. Since I have been 

 using the frame hive I have changed from 

 blacks to Italians. I have read what the 

 several writers have said about the light 

 and dark colored bees. My experience is 

 that the goldens are not worth much more 

 than house flies; and the Holy Lands are 

 worse than the goldens. 



Havana, Ala. J. S. Patton. 



On page 116, Feb. 15, Mr. Elias Fox says, 

 " I have seen a good many queens and 

 thousands of workers killed by being stung. 

 I have yet to see the first bee with a sting 

 lodged in it." Further on he states that he 

 never was able to make a queen sting him, 

 and asks if any one was ever stung by a 

 queen. Now, both those thing's occurred at 

 the same hive and on the same day in my 

 presence, proving that, out of an infinite 

 number of possibilities, great improbabili- 

 ties and coincidences may occur. 



I had been from home two days attend- 

 ing outyards, leaving an eleven-year-old 

 daughter in chai'ge to cage the clipped 

 queen and let her go again as soon as swarm 

 returned. She reported, among others, that 

 " 39 " had swarmed both days. This morn- 

 ing I was at home and at work when " 39 '' 

 came out again. As we had been having 

 wet weather for some days prior to the last 

 two, I hardly expected to find the queen out 

 again, for, in addition to their reluctance to 

 come out when they find they can not fly, 

 there was the possibility of her being killed 

 by a virgin; but, contrary to my expecta- 

 tions, she was again found climbing the 

 weeds and attempting to fly. I duly caged 

 her and placed her on the alightiiig-board. 

 After the return of the swarm I went over 

 to liberate the queen, and noticed that there 

 were no bees on the cage as usual — in fact, 

 only about four or five bees were visible at 

 the entrance. I removed the plug and laid 

 the cage a few inches from these bees. Im- 

 mediately after she left the cage one sprang 

 at her and buried its sting in her thorax, 

 and she was dead in 15 or 20 seconds — long 

 before the contractions of the sting had 

 ceased. 



Looking through the hive I found several 

 ripe cells, none empty, though the mandi- 

 bles of one young queen were plainly visible 

 cutting its way out. The bees were dark 

 hybrids, and very cross, so I decided to re- 

 qiieen from a nucleus, cutting the cells out. 

 My little girl let the young queen run into 

 her hand, as she had often done before. In 



