228 FIFTY YEARS AMONG THE BEES 



course, my wife followed me, puffing and switching at 

 every step, and by the time we got to the wagon the rob- 

 bers were lost, the frame was slipped quickly into the 

 super on the wagon, and the robber-cloth dropped over 

 it. The Scotch folks at the house had a good laugh over 

 the crazy couple chasing one another through the 

 orchard, but we beat the bees. Under ordinary circum- 

 stances it would be better to take an easier plan or wait 

 till dark. 



PROTECTION FROM STINGS. 



I have been a bee-keeper since 1861, and since 1878 

 I have made the production of honey my sole business, 

 aside from writing about bees, and yet I have not reached 

 that point where I care nothing for protection from 

 stings. When I first commenced keeping bees, a sting on 

 my hand was a serious affair, swelling to the shoulder, 

 and troubling fully as much the second day as the first. 

 Now, if I receive a half-dozen stings or more, I cannot 

 tell an hour or two later where I was stung, except as a 

 matter of memory. Y^et I think that a sting gives me 

 fully as much pain for the first minute now, as it did fifty 

 years ago. Sometimes the pain is so severe that it liter- 

 ally makes me groan, especially if no one is within hear- 

 ing. I sometimes wonder at those who scout at any sort 

 of protection, and query whether there may not be just 

 a little of a spirit of bravado about it. I think I could go 

 through a year without any sort of prqitection, but I do 

 not think I ever shall. A bee inside my clothing makes me 

 very nervous, and I cannot go on in comfort at my work 

 with a .feeling of uncertainty as to where and when its 

 little javelin shall pierce my flesh. If I feel it c^ait^ing on 

 me, and then cease to feel it because it is on the clothing 

 and not on the skin, I am in momentary drekd as to 

 where it shall turn up next ; and it is a real relief when 

 it stings me, for I know then the precise spot where it is, 

 and have no further expectations from it. 



