1568 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Dec. 



double-strength extra-hot ones(you all know) 

 right on the end of the nose. Say! his dig- 

 nity went all to pieces in a twinkle. Now. 

 why was it that those other stings had no 

 effe'et upon his temper, while that single one 

 on the nose fanned his spark of indignation 

 into a roaring holocaust of wrath? It was 

 simply a matter of "locality." He brought 

 his hand to his nose and killed the bee. 

 That seemed a signal for a general assault 

 all along the line. He brought up his other 

 hand and accidentally knocked off his hat. 

 This exposed to the tire of the enemy that 

 shiny, glossy, mirror-like head. How very 

 thankful I was then that my head was bald 

 on the inside instead of on the outside! They 

 covered his head as if it were a buckwheat- 

 field; and — 



They stung him in the whis- ,„^^^ « 



kers, I^S£r?5| 



They stung- him in the face, 

 They stung- him in the eyes 

 and nose, 

 They stung him ev'ry place; 

 They stung him on the ears 

 and mouth, 

 They stung him on the chin. 

 But the way they peppered 

 his bald head 

 Was certainly a sin. 



Some of them went up his 

 sleeves. 

 Some went far down his 

 neck; 

 But the number that crawled 

 up his pants 

 Must have been morn a 

 peck. 

 He jumped and pranced about 

 the lot. 

 How — oh how : — he slapped 

 his pants! 

 The bees kept at it all the 

 same; 

 And mercyl how he dancedt 



:.^^M^,^: 



He stumbled o'er the chicken- 

 coop. 

 The little chicks got out; 

 The woman came upon the 

 scene 

 (You ought to"ve heard her 

 shout); 

 He knocked the grindstone 

 over. 

 He broke the boy"s toy sled; 

 Uncomplimentary, you bet. 

 Were many things he said. 



He brought his hand against 

 his face 

 With a tremendous spank — 

 " Confound your o r n e r y 

 blooming bees '. 

 Blank I Blank : Blankety 

 Blank!" 

 The bees had him defeated. 



Something must be done — 

 He did the only thing he 

 could — 

 He turned around to run. 



SOLILOQUY. 



"When I go near the bees 

 again 

 I'll keep my hat on tight. 

 For they get on too quick, 

 you know, 

 When I take it off to fight. 

 If eer another bee I get. 



"Twill be the stingless bee— 

 They would try to find some 

 hair to pull 

 Instead of stinging me. 

 About the bee's intelligence 



The poets like to harp. 

 But this I know: At either 

 end 

 The bee is mighty sharp." 



v^:^t 



'fW\ 



In fact, if Mr. Alexander had seen the fra- 

 cas illustrated below he would have had to 

 acknowledge that there was one place that 

 was "overstocked." The owner certainly 

 thought he had more liees in one place than 

 was prohtal^le, and tried to dispose of some 

 of them, but did not succeed very well. 



j^M^rM 



A QUEEN-FERTILIZING TENT. 



How One can be Used for the Purpose of 



Controlling the Male Parentage; Some 



of the Difficulties Encountered : AVill 



the Plans Finally be Successful ? 



BY C. M. CHURCH. 



I will explain to our readers that I made arrange- 

 ments with Mr. Church to bear part of the expense of 

 this experiment, he to furnish us the results. I had 

 always had a desire to test it, but with our busy rush 

 at Medina we had no one here who could give the mat- 

 ter time and thought sufficient to give the plan a fair 

 trial.— Ed. 



After having studied Ijee-keeping for a 

 numl)er of years, and being a great lover of 

 bees and honey, I concltided to rear a few 

 queens, as much for pleasure as for profit. 

 Here I came to the question confronting all 

 (lueen-breeders: "How can I breed pure 

 stock and be able to guarantee it without 

 testing"?" That is, instead of giving queens 

 to all my neighbors to have only pure stock 

 in the vicinity, how could I be stire that my 

 queens were mated to select drones? Cast- 

 ing alwut for the best plan to try, I noticed 

 the large tent or dome built by J. S. Davitt, 

 of Aragou. Ga. . mentioned in the A B C of 

 Bee Culture: and. after corresponding with 

 Mr. Davitt, I found that he succeeded in fer- 

 tilizing queens in his dome, and that it was 

 a perfect success. So I concluded to try his 

 plan, which was, to build a tent of wire cloth 

 as shown in the illustrations. 



HOW WE BUILT THE TENT. 



The one that I built was 30 feet in diame- 

 ter and 30 feet high. I used 8 poles 34 ft. 

 long, set in a circle about 15 feet from the 

 center, giving a circumference of 94 ft. The 

 poles were set into the ground 4 ft. You 

 will see by the picture a lx4-ineh strip nail- 

 ed to the top clear around to tack screen to, 

 and another ix 10-inch piece nailed 4 feet 

 from the top to walk on while ptitting on the 

 wire cloth, etc. To keep the whole structure 

 from being blown over, a guy of No. 6 gal- 

 vanized iron wire was run from near the top 

 of each pole out to a stake or tree. To sup- 

 port the wire cloth on the top, there were 

 wires sti'ung across through the center from 



