June 13, 1907 



American ^ae Journal 



know, as this gentleman says, there are 

 times of season when you can go into 

 your bee-j'ard, and have children play 

 around the bees, and everything is love- 

 ly; but I also know, as far as my ex- 

 perience goes, that I never have seen an 

 apiary of 12 or 15 colonies but what a 

 child at some time of year was stung 

 and went about 3'elling, "I hurt myself 

 on a bee!" and the mother ran with 

 arnica, and there was trouble. I 

 shouldn't want to set myself down with 

 100 colonies of bees within 80 feet of 

 a school-house or a highway. It seems 

 to me, as bee-keepers, we ought to be 

 more careful, and put ourselves in the 

 place of the other fellow, and see if 

 we would like to be treated that way. 

 Where I have my bees, although I am 

 at least 100 feet from anybody, sur- 

 rounded by a green-house on one side 

 and a grove on the other, and at least 

 150 feet from the street, yet I am in 

 fear every day that I may have some 

 trouble. A year ago last spring, when 

 I put my bees out, a neighbor said, 

 "Mrs. Turner has had trouble with her 

 water. Her clothes are turned and she 

 thinks it is iron rust." I walked over, 

 and I said, "Mrs. Turner, I know what 

 is the matter with your clothes." She 

 said, "I wish you would tell me." I 

 said, "I put my bees out. If you will 

 take those clothes and put them in water 

 and wait until tomorrow to hang them 

 out, and send me the bill, I shall be 

 glad to pay the bill." "O, that is it?" 

 "Yes," I said "that is it." "O, it is 

 nothing at all. It only makes me a lit- 

 tle trouble, and perhaps they will be 

 the better for a second rinsing, any 

 way." I only say this because I do not 

 wish you to think that I acquiesce that 

 you can set bees down near a school- 

 house or where people hang their wash- 

 irig out. I think if you have 150 colo- 

 nies in the city you would better move 

 into the country. 



Mr. Moore— I was brought up in 

 Evanston with bees. In the eyes of bee- 

 keepers it is a kind of joke for any- 

 body to get stung. At our house we 

 have two boys, and I take a frame out 

 and say to the boys, "Look here. Run 

 for your Hfe!" They get stung 3 or 

 4 times a week and they take it as a 

 joke. I was out at my brother's the 

 past summer, and he and I went in and 

 took the honey out and we got stung 

 10 or IS times around our ankles. We 

 did not mind it because it did not af- 

 fect our blood at all. It did not poison 

 us. But I want to tell you I have in- 

 spected bees around Chicago a good 

 deal. The public think they are like 

 snakes; they are deadly afraid of them; 

 and although it is a joke with us it is 

 serious to those folks. I want to bear 

 down hard on this: A pound of honey 

 will smooth over a whole lot of bee- 

 stings, and whenever anybody complains, 

 you want to do the right thing, and do 

 it quick. Then you won't get unpopular 

 in the cities. Otherwise you will, and 

 they will put you out of the cities if 

 they get after you really in earnest. 

 You may say you have the Supreme 

 Court of Arkansas, and all that, to 

 show that you can not put bees out of 

 the cities, but I say they will put you 

 out quick if they set their minds on it. 



Give them a pound of honey; keep 



them good-natured. Use your judg- 

 ment. Some places you must be 80 rods 

 away from the highway. Other places 

 you can have them close to the high- 

 way. Have their flight the other way. 

 Some bee-keepers are fooUsh enough to 

 have their flight towards the road. 



Dr. Miller — One point Mr. France 

 made, I am afraid possibly might be 

 misunderstood, and might be misused. 

 .\s I remember, he said with a few 

 colonies it is one thing, but with many 

 colonies it is a different matter. Some one 

 might take from that, that as long as he 

 had one, two or a half-dozen he might 

 put the bees up close. I remember one 

 year my bees seemed to be very cross- 

 stung a great deal. A very close watch 

 discovered to me that it was one par- 

 ticular colony in the apiary, and only 

 that one, and of course Mr. France 

 knows that as well as I do. When I 

 changed the queen of that colony the 

 cross bees disappeared in a little while. 

 Suppose I had only had one colony 

 and it had happened to be that cross 

 one, I would have been as bad off with 

 one colony as with a hundred. So don't 

 count too much on it that you are safe 

 because you have only a small number. 



Mr. Pease — I wish to answer one 

 question of Mr. Kimmey's in regard to 

 the apiary I spoke of a few minutes ago 

 being across the street from a school- 

 house. That particular yard is not run 

 for comb honey. It is run for the pro- 

 duction of bees, the colonies being, you 

 might say, weak. I do not suppose there 

 are over a half-dozen colonies contain- 

 ing the full number of frames (8) in 

 the whole yard. Another thing, I do 

 not tolerate a cross colony. I simply 

 pull off the head of the queen, and re- 

 queen, and I find that eliminates the 

 trouble. I find also, or I verily believe, 

 that 100 colonies of bees can be taken 

 care of in a manner which will be a 

 far less nuisance to a locality than under 

 some conditions a half-dozen colonies 

 improperly treated. In regard to the 

 school, and in regard to the present 

 locality, the very best friends I have in 

 that neighborhood are the scholars and 

 the teachers, and there are no com- 

 plaints, and have not been, from the im- 

 mediate neighbors, who, I might say, 

 are a half a block away. 



I have trouble sometimes by bees 

 being made cross by boys. Boys like 

 to shy stones at the bees, and very often 

 that makes them very ugly, and I think 

 you have an ugly colony of bees when 

 stones have been thrown at the hive, 

 just as they would throw at bumble- 

 bees' or hornets' nests — just throw quick 

 and then run. 



Mr. Thompson — I would like to ask 

 Dr. Miller how he is able to locate a 

 cross swarm in a yard of 150, for in- 

 stance. 



Dr. Miller — I never had 150 in one 

 yard, but I owned one yard of 123. 

 When I go along and come close in front 

 of a particular hive and 15 or 20 bees 

 come out full blast at me, I think they 

 are cross with me; and when I find 

 that the same thing occurs every time I 

 go by that hive for a week or two, I 

 settle down that that is the one, and 

 that queen suffers. 



Mr. Kimmey — I bought S nuclei and 



I put them in the yard. They were the 

 first I had, I think, and the next day 

 I went to examine them. You don't 

 know how proud I was to handle them 

 without smoke or bee-veil. The next 

 day I undertook to show some one how 

 nicely I could take them out without 

 the bee-veil or smoke. I didn't take 

 them out. I went and got the smoke 

 and bee-veil. That has been my ex- 

 perience ever since. Sometimes I can 

 do anything; sometimes they can do 

 anything. I have been thinking of your 

 having bees in a small lot where youi 

 neighbors are around. Don't your bees 

 ever act like that, especially in the fall 

 of the year? Don't they get ugly as 

 mine do, so that it is not safe to go 

 within 40 or 50 feet without danger of 

 being stung? I am like Mr. Moore. 

 I don't mind a couple of thousand 

 stings. I would not like to be stung to 

 death, of course. But I have a son-in- 

 law who was stung once, and he says 

 he would not keep the blamed things 

 around. I imagine there are lots of 

 other men, and lots of women and child- 

 ren who feel that same way. I do not 

 know but what you can rear bees for 

 breeding purposes ; never let them get 

 strong; keep them always weak; and 

 not have them sting. I do not know 

 but what you can, but I should awfully 

 hate to try it, and I don't want to back 

 anybody else up. My voice is for being 

 careful, and, if you have trouble, put 

 yourself in the other fellow's place. 



Mr. Taylor — I just want to make one 

 suggestion, and that is this : I think 

 that we ought, just as soon as we pos- 

 sibly can, to learn to know when we can 

 handle bees with inpunity. A bee-keep- 

 er after he has had considerable ex- 

 perience will learn, as Mr. Kimmey has 

 done, that he can at one time handle his 

 bees with no appearance of anger on 

 their part, and at another time they are 

 full of vengeance. One can learn with 

 a little thought and care just what to 

 do in his apiary, and to get along with- 

 out ever angering them. I have not for 

 years had any trouble in my apiary in 

 any way. Of course, it would be a lit- 

 tle more difficult, perhaps, if I were pro- 

 ducing extracted honey, but with comb 

 honey there is no necessity at all of 

 stirring up your bees. If you only use 

 good common judgment in handling 

 them, and the time when to do it, there 

 is no necessity to do it. 



Mr. Kimmey — I was talking of my 

 early experiences. I think I have now 

 learned those things. I think on open- 

 ing a hive I can tell whether they are 

 going to fight or not. I know I can 

 tell by the smell when they begin. But 

 while I may know, how are the neigh- 

 bors and the children to know? 



Dr. Miller — There is another point. 

 Suppose I know enough to know ex- 

 actly how the bees are going to act, by 

 they way they behave, by the odor or 

 something like that. Suppose I go off 

 S miles to do some work? The only 

 thing is to have the bees off where they 

 won't bother anybody. City bee-keep- 

 ing is one thing, and country another. 

 If I were in the city with the bees I 

 have now I would not keep them except 

 in the center of the block, and I would 

 have blocks consolidated into one. One 



