110 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



[Nov., 



of our cages to examine. Below we give the 



result of the interview : 



Post Office Department, I 

 Washington, D. C, May 20, 1S73. ( 



Sir : In reply to the letter of your corre- 

 spondent, Mr. H. Alley, of Wenham, Mass., the 

 Postmaster General instructs me to say relative 

 to tlie ruling of this Department, that honey 

 bees should not be transmitted in the mails; 

 that said ruling was based upon the 133d Sec- 

 tion of the Postal code, passed .June 8, 1872, 

 which requires postmasters to exclude from the 

 mails all articles which, from their form or na- 

 ture, are liable to destroy, deface, or otherwise 

 injure the contents of the mail bags, or the 

 person of any engaged in the postal service, 

 and that in view of the fact that a special 

 agent of this Department discovered one of 

 these packages in a leaiiing condition, the con- 

 tents of the mail bag having been badly soiled 

 thereby; also that a person in charge of the 

 mail bags advised said agent that he had been 

 badly stung by the bees, he does not deem it 

 advisable to reverse or modify the former de- 

 cision. Very respectfully, 



J. W. Marshall,, 

 First AssH. P. M. Gen'l. 



Hon. B. p. Butler, Washington, D. C. 



Now who believes that any man was stung 

 by the bees while going through the mails ? I 

 for one do not. 



I wish I had this fellow in my bee yard 

 about the time I get a lot of black bees from 

 my country friends, I would let him know 

 what it is to be stung by bees. 



Mr. Langstroth promised me hethat would do 

 something about sending bees by mail. I pre- 

 sume his health has prevented him from doing 

 so. The fact is, no postmaster has had orders 

 not to receive bees to be sent in the mails. Our 

 postmaster knows nothing about this decision, 

 only what I have told him, and he will take all 

 the bees I will pass into him, and I have no 

 trouble in getting other postmasters to take 

 them, and no postmaster would refuse to take 

 them who understands his "biz." I am of the 

 opinion that nothing more will be said about it 

 unless those fellows continue to put honey in 

 the cages, and I don't think it advisable for 

 any one to say more about it, unless the Post- 

 master General opens again. T think all has 

 been done that can be for the present. 



We have this season sent queens by mail to 

 Alabama, Texas, Missouri, Nebraska and Kan- 

 sas, all of them went safely to those places. 

 When a dead one was reported, it has come 

 from New York State, or some other place 

 where the mail will arrive in twenty-four hours 

 from Wenham. With this year's experience we 

 ha,ve learned much that is valuable to a queen 

 raiser. We never before received so many or- 

 ders for queens as we have this season, and we 

 never before got so much honey from our bees, 

 and of such good quality, as we have this 

 season. H. Alley, Wenham, Mass., 



P. S.— Correction. — Mr. Editor: In the 

 Oc'ober number your printer made me say 

 some things in my article on " Feeding Bees" 

 that I did not say. In describing the feeder 

 made by Mr. Langstroth, you made me say : 

 Two combs are tied together at the largest ends. 

 What I said was this : Two corn cobs are tied 

 at tlie largest end. Then you made me say that 

 my hives have neaily as much food (Sept. 11) as 

 they had in the spring. Bi-ood, and not food, is 

 what I intended to have it read. H. Alley. 



[For the American Bee Journal.] 



Bees and their Sting. 



Let me premise the subject of my communi- 

 cation by stating that my experience in bee- 

 keeping, to any extent, runs back only three 

 years, and yet I have had them in keeping in 

 the old way, for many years, as also my father 

 before me ; but having made up my mind to 

 follow bee culture as a business, I determined 

 to know something of others knowledge as well 

 as to learn something myself With these de- 

 terminations and objects in view, among the 

 very many things to be learned was how to get 

 stung and how not to get stung. I took the 

 advice of old beekeepers the first two seasons, 

 and smoked my bees sometimes with punk, 

 again with cotton rags, then with tobacco, ob- 

 serving the cflFcct upon the bees at each smok- 

 ing both at the time and at subsequent visits to 

 my apiary. I always found that the stronger 

 the smoke (No. l,punk; No. 2, cotton rags; 

 No. 3, tobacco;) the more docile the bees were 

 at the time ; but woe to me when I approached 

 afterward the colonies subdued by No. 3. Merely 

 passing by tho^c hives, without disturbing them 

 in the least, they would— so to speak— pitch in- 

 to me all sorts, at one time receiving no less 

 than seven stings. Nos. 1 and 2 were lessfero- 

 cious, consequently I discarded No. 3 entirely. 

 Gradually Nos. 1 and 2 were ignored, and this 

 season I have used no smoke at all- Asa rule 

 to go by at all times, I approach a colony to be 

 examined at from 10 A. M. to 4 P.M.; carefully 

 remove the cover from the hive; wait a moment, 

 remove the honey board ; pause a moment or 

 two and then very grntly raise the frames. It 

 is very seldom that I use vail or gloves, and only 

 occasionally T get a sting. 



Here I must diverge from my subject to say 

 that it is not a '' mistake to suppose that a bee- 

 sting is nothing when you are used to it," when 

 a certain remedy is at hand, as in mycase. Here 

 I will state that I am in the habit of receiving 

 visits to my apiary from gentlemen, and even 

 ladies and children, who stand at my side, un- 

 protected, while I take out the frames, and hunt 

 up and exhibit the queen. Out of very many 

 calls of this kind only one individual has been 

 stung. Having said thus much of experience 

 and management, I now propose to briefly make 

 a note of the poisonous effects of the virus of 

 the beesting. 



