November, 1907. 



American Hee Journal 



one enterprising bee, with ;i very super- 

 ior kind of sting, vcntureii to inspect 

 the inside of niy nose. I rennMiibercd a 

 song I once heard commencing: 



"Go 'way, good massa bee, 



I ain't no rose, 

 Dat ain't no honeyed fow'r, 



Only my nose!" 



I sniffed one desperate sniflf to drive 

 the intruder out, and then I discovered 

 how well slic was provided in the sting- 

 dcpartnient. I got it, and no mistake. 

 I con.s'idered no longer. I caught the 

 hat and veil, gave it one desperate tug, 

 slashed it ofT, and sprinted, making a 

 "bee-line" for tlic far end of the gar- 

 den. The remaining bees must have been 

 too much astonished to attend to their 

 work properly, for I escaped fairly well 

 considering; but what a face I had for 

 several days after! 



For some time afterwards my thoughts 

 were principally occupied with two sub- 

 jects — how to get the better of those 

 bees, and how to accomplish a sufficient- 

 ly blood-thirsty revenge on that "e.\- 

 pert." I had almost decided on a div- 

 ing suit for the former purpose, and a 

 large pair of hobnailed boots and a 

 knobby blackthorn for the latter when 

 chance threw in my way a more con- 

 venient and enjoyable opportunity of 

 killing both birds with one stone. 

 ****** 



Shortly after my adventure with the 

 bees. I heard that the very "expert" 

 gentleman who was the cause of it was 

 in the locality and was looking up bee- 

 keepers to enlighten them on the mod- 

 ern methods of working. Here was my 

 opportunity. I immediately sent him a 

 cordial invitation to come and clear up 

 some difficult points for me. and I 

 laughed with joy on getting his post- 

 card making an appointment. 



Now, although I made so signal a 

 failure in my attempt to subdue my 

 bees, I can claim to complete success 

 in being able to stir them up thoroughly. 

 An old countryman once told me how to 

 do it. For obvious reasons I cannot 

 give the recipe away, but it certainly is 

 an infallible plan, and will convert the 

 most amiable hive of bees into a tor- 

 nado of raging, tearing demons, on very 

 short notice. Of course, I had my swarm 

 carefully roused up for the old chap 

 when he came. 



He is a solemn and portly gentle- 

 man, with a paunch and a double chin ; 

 an air of ponderous wisdom tempered 

 by a smile of superior knowledge. My 

 heart almost melted with pity for him 

 when he came into the garden; but 

 something in the swagger and his smile 

 recalled the performance at the show, 

 and I hardened up again. 



He strutted over to the hive with a 

 self-satisfied air. 



"Hadn't j'ou better put on a veil?" I 

 asked. 



"Oh, not at all," he replied. "It's not 

 necessary. Bees know a friend w-hen 

 he comes to visit them. Just a little 

 wipe of the carbolic, if you please?" 



He took the lid off the hive with a 

 sort of professional flourish, and placed 

 the carbolic cloth in position with an- 

 other. I awaited events, at a respecta- 

 ble distance. 



"Seem a bit nois}'. don't they?" he re- 



marked. I assented, as solemnly as 1 

 could. 



"Now, then, let's see what they're 

 like," he said, as he removed the cloth. 

 There was a moment's hush, and then 

 a vigorous buzz. He replaced the cloth, 

 and then after a minute or so took it 

 off once more. He did the same thing 

 again, several times, at intervals, but 

 the noise still continued, and the bees 

 were beginning to come out underneath, 

 and were careering around with an un- 

 mistakable note of war in their music. 

 Presently one settled on his hand, and 

 stung him. He merely drawled out, 

 "A'h !" and watched the insect in an 

 interested sort of way, whilst it 

 squirmed out the sting and flew off, 

 when he smiled over reassuringly at 

 me. But he began to look puzzled as 

 more and more bees came out, and the 

 war-note increased in itensity and ve- 

 hemence. He must have got several 

 more stings by this time, but his pro- 

 fessional dignity being at stake, he made 

 no complaint as yet. 



"I'm afraid this is not their day at 

 home," I remarked. "Better clear out. 

 I think, as they seem in a fighting 

 mood." 



"They are certainly in a nasty hu- 

 mor," he replied. Just then one stung 

 him on the nose, and he began to move 

 off. The bees followed. He moved 

 faster, so did the bees. Then he broke 

 into a run, made a quick dash to one 

 side, and doubled in his tracks like a 

 hare. The bees seemed to enjoy it. 

 They "zipped" down on his bald head 

 and buzzed around his ears. They went 

 up his sleeves and into his pockets. 

 They were to right of him, to left of 

 him, in front, and behind, like the can- 

 non around the heroes of Balaclava. He 

 danced through a gooseberry bush and 

 barked his shins over a wheelbarrow, 

 dropping his spectacles in the process. 

 He frolicked through a cabbage bed, and 

 crashed into a cucumber frame Hke a 

 wild elephant. He fought with his hat, 

 as long as a vestige of it remained. 

 He cursed and swore, and laid about 

 him, the bees paying careful attention 

 to business all the time. 



I lay down on the grass and choked, 

 till the tears ran from my eyes. I felt 

 sorry for him, but if the whole em- 

 pire were at stake, I couldn't stir a 

 finger to help. I wasn't able to see ex- 

 actly how he finished up, but after a 

 time a very angry and crestfallen and 

 dilapidated old gentleman hobbled up 

 the garden, trying to rub his head, and 

 his face, and his shins, all at the same 

 time. There was no use in trying to 

 comfort him. I decided to let him swear 

 for another while till he cooled a little. 

 After he had eased himself of some 

 picturesque words, he demanded, "Where 

 the blankety — blank so-and-so did you 

 get those bees from?" 



"Swarmed them -myself last April," 

 I replied, as calmly as ray emotion would 

 allow. 



"By • I'll sw-ear it was the devil 



himself swarmed them," he roared. 

 "They're the wickedest pack of demons 

 I ever came across." Then he put in a 

 good many ornamental expressions 

 which cannot be set down here, and 

 he earnestly requested me, in flowing 

 language, to blow them to the utter- 



most Ixjunds of perdition with the dead- 

 liest explosive I could procure. 



I now felt that he and I were more 

 than quits, so I brought him into the 

 house, gave him a drop of something, 

 and said all the soothing things I could 

 think of. Me calmed down after awhile, 

 when I brushed down his clothes, fished 

 up his ruined spectacles, lent him a hat 

 several times too small for him, and 

 he went o/T. I could hear the dull rum- 

 ble of his voice as he went down the 

 road, "Perfect demons; damnable, dam- 

 nable." — Irish Packet. 



Normalities and Abnormali- 

 ties of Queen-Introduction 



Under normal conditions only one 

 queen will be tolerated_ in a colony at 

 a time. Should there 'by accident be 

 two, when they meet there is likely to 

 be a battle royal, when one of them will 

 be killed ; so it happens that queens are, 

 as a rule, jealous rivals; but there are 

 exceptions. There are conditions, as 

 when an old queen is about to be super- 

 seded, when the young daughter may 

 be tolerated in the hive along with the 

 mother, and both laying side by side; 

 but in the course of a few days or a 

 few weeks the mother will be missing. 

 Whether she dies of old age or the 

 daughter kills her we do not know. 

 There are other conditions where two 

 and sometimes a dozen queens will be 

 permitted to stay in the hive; but those 

 conditions seem to be abnormal. 



Again, it may be stated that a nor- 

 mal colony of bees will not take a 

 strange queen, even though they have 

 no mother of their own, much less will 

 they accept an interloper when there is 

 already a queen in the hive. We may, 

 therefore, lay it down as a rule that has 

 exceptions, like all other good rules, 

 that we can not introduce any queen, 

 young or old, to a colony that already 

 has one ; and even when the bees have 

 been suddenly deprived of a queen they 

 will not. under ordinary conditions, ac- 

 cept another, no matter how much they 

 may need one, until she has been "intro- 

 duced." It follows, then, in the process 

 of requeening we are compelled to put a 

 new queen in a wirecloth cage and con- 

 fine her there, where the other bees can 

 not attack her, until she has acquired the 

 same colony odor or individual scent as 

 the bees themselves. This usually takes 

 two or three days, at the end of which 

 time the queen may be released and they 

 will treat her as their own royal mother 

 We do not know how bees recogniz* 

 each other, or how they can tell a 

 strange queen from their own, except 

 by scent factor. It is a fact well rec- 

 ognized that a dog can pick out his mas- 

 ter from hundreds of others through the 

 agency of scent ; nay, further, he can 

 track him if he loses sight of him by 

 catching the scent of where he has 

 walked, in spite of the fact that hun- 

 dreds of others have gone over the same 

 ground. This scent that is so acute in a 

 dog is undoubtedly highly developed in 

 the bee, otherwise we should be at a 

 loss to account for the phenomena in the 

 domestic economy of the hive. Hence 

 we naturally conclude that, by the sense 



