Aug. 31, 1905 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



615 





WM. M. WHITNEY 



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The subject of this sketch is one of the old- 

 est aDd most earaest readers of the American 

 Bee Journal. At present he resides in Wal- 

 worth Co., Wis. His life has been a very 

 busy one from his youth, being obliged to 

 make his own way — which isn't the worst 

 thing that can happen to a boy — at about the 

 age of 15. His father owned a farm of mod- 

 erate size, and reared a large family — 9 chil- 

 dren—which was no easy task. How his 

 father and mother endured the hardships at- 

 tendant on making a home in the midst of a 

 primeval forest as they did, is more than he 

 can understand. 



Mr. Whitney was born on a farm in the 

 town of Ontario, Wayne Co., N. Y., Sept. 23, 

 1828 ; passed through the various vicissitudes 

 attendant upon child-life — chicken-pox, 

 mumps, measles, whooping-cough, scarlet- 

 fever, etc., to say nothing of the ague and 

 chill fever. He survived them all, through 

 the faithful care given him by his mother and 

 father. He attended the common school win- 

 ters and summers till about 13, when farm- 

 work was followed during the summer-time. 



At the age of 1.5 he went away from home i 

 miles in the winter to school at West Wal- 

 worth Academy, and from there to Macedon, 

 which was an institution of higher grade. He 

 spent several terms at the last institution — in 

 fact, finished his school-days there. He 



taught school from the time he was 18, more 

 or less, for 10 years; clerked in a dry goods 

 store in Palmyra for a time, and a year in a 

 book-store in Watertown, N. Y. 



WM. M. WHITNEY 



He married the eldest daughter of Nelson 

 Clark, a farmer of Le Roy, N. Y., at the age of 

 33. He moved to Illinois in the spring of 1858, 

 and engaged in mercantile business with a 

 cousin of his wife; elected clerk of the Circuit 



Court of the County of Du Page, 111., in 1860, 

 and held the office 8 years, and was ex-offlcio 

 recorder during the same time. 



In 18I1S he formed a partnership with Isaac 

 Clatliu in real estate and loans ; was elected 

 to the 37th General Assembly in 1870, which 

 had the remodeling of the statutes to conform 

 to the new constitution that had been passed 

 in 1869, holding 4 sessions in the 2 years ; 

 elected member of the State Board of Equali- 

 zation of Taxes in 1872 for 4 years, represent- 

 ing the first Congressional district; in the 

 Revenue Collector's office in Chicago for a 

 short time, and in 1879 went to the Illinois 

 Eastern Hospital for the Insane at the head 

 of the business department, which position he 

 held for 8 years. Since that time Mr. W. has 

 not been engaged in any important business. 

 He was burned out in the Chicago fire of 1871, 

 that is, all his valuable papers — books, mort- 

 gages, notes, abstracts, etc. — entailing a loss 

 of several thousand dollars. 



Mr. Whitney's family consisted of his wife 

 and 7 children — 6 daughters and one son — of 

 whom only 3 daughters are left. He took up 

 bee-keeping as a pastime, as he had been very 

 much out of health from over-work, anxiety 

 and care. He has found the occupation most 

 pleasant and instructive. His only regret is 

 that he did not commence the study and care 

 of the honev-bee in his younger days. 



Mr. Whitney's 3 daughters married physi- 

 cians, and one daughter is now a practicing 

 physician. While clerk of the circuit court he 

 studied law, and was admitted to the bar by 

 the supreme court, but never practiced the 

 profession. 



The picture shown herewith is one taken 

 several years ago, but is a good likeness of 

 Mr. Whitney, we think. He now has some 

 60 colonies of bees, and has always been very 

 successful as a bee-keeper. 



-V (Eontrtbutcb -f 

 J Special Clrticles 



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Something Interesting About Bee-Stings 



BY G. M. DOOLITTLE 



While at work in the apiary a few days ago, a bee- 

 keeper of a few years' experience came in, and at about the 

 same time a bee stung me on the hand, when, with a quick 

 motion, the sting was rubbed out of the hand by striking the 

 hand on my pants, with an upward drawing motion, thus 

 getting the sting out so quickly that very little poison entered 

 the wound. This part of getting the sting out was lost to my 

 visitor through his curiosity regarding whether the bee would 

 soon die from the effect of losing its sting. He was sure that 

 every bee which stung a person or anything else, so that it 

 lost its sting, must of necessity soon die, and said that he 

 had been told by an old bee-keeper that such was the case. 



At aliout this time the bee returned to another attack on 

 both him and me, the white, thread-like substance where 

 it had parted from the sting showing that this bee, which was 

 so intent on stingiug us (if it could), was the self-same bee 

 which had stung me only a few moments before. I called 

 his attention to the matter of this being the same bee, and 

 told him that it did not look as if the bee was just ready 

 to die from losing its sting, by the way it was still trying to 

 sting us. He said that did look a little strange, but he still 

 seemed to be sure that the bee would soon die. 



Up to within the past lo or is years most persons believed 

 as did my visitor, arguing that in leaving the sting, as the 

 honey-bee nearly always does in stinging an animal, a part 

 of the intestines was left with the sting — poison sac, etc. — ■ 

 which would surely cause the bee to die. This seemed so 

 reasonable that for many years I believed that this prevailing 

 idea was true, till one day after a bee had stung me, leaving 

 its sting, it came to the attack again and again, with all the 

 fury and vengeance possible for a bee to work itself up to, 

 getting in my hair and singing away as only an angry bee 



can s ing, which will make the cold chills run up and down 

 the back of any but the most hardened individual. 



As this bee apparently had no thought of dying, it was 

 caught and caged with three or four others and kept a week 

 or so to see what would become of the matter. At the end 

 of the week it was apparently just as lively and healthy as 

 any of the rest, when all the bees were set at liberty. 



At another time, in putting up queens to send away, in 

 catching the escort bees which were to go with the queen, 

 one of them stung me on the end of the finger, leaving its 

 sting, when it immediately ran into the cage. As I did not 

 wish to remove all the bees and q\ieen to get it out I let it go, 

 soon after which the thought came to me that here would 

 be a chance to test the theory of the death of the bee from 

 losing its sting, as this queen was going a journey which would 

 take eight or ten days. 



Accordingly I wrote to the person to whom they were 

 sent, telling him all about the matter and asking him to take 

 notice particularly when the queen arrived and see if there 

 were any dead bees in the cage. In due time he replied that 

 the queen arrived in splendid shape, and that there was not 

 a single dead bee in the cage. 



Several times since then I have tried similar ways to 

 see if such bees as had lost their stings were in any way 

 inconvenienced thereby, and as far as I can tell by means 

 of confining them so as to know that I have the same bee, I 

 can see no difference between such bees and those which 

 have their stings, as to length of life. Whether they gather 

 honey or not, or whether they are allowed to live in the hive 

 without their weapon of defense is something which would be 

 next to, if not quite, impossible to tell, for in this case we 

 have no means of keeping track of an individual bee. 



As bees are not tolerated in the hive, which are in any 

 way imperfect, it might not be unreasonable to suppose that 

 the' perfect ones might drive off such an one which had lost 

 its sting, as being incapable of defense were the hive attacked. 



That it was not the design of nature that the bees should 

 always lose their stings when defending their hives is manifest 

 where bees repel robbers to the extent of hundreds and thou- 

 sands of slaughtered, when in such cases not one bee in one 

 thousand loses its sting, but keeps it so that it can slaughter 

 bee after bee till the attacking iiarty is repelled, or they lose 

 their lives in the combat. .At times they do lose their stings 

 in other bees, but not often. 



Before closing I wish to say a word about getting the 

 sting out of the flesh as soon as possible. We have been told 



