AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



399 



On Important Subjects. 



Smoke for Curing Bee-Stings. 



E. STRONG. 



The best is, to avoid being stung. To 

 this end, a matter of prime importance 

 is, to singe off the hair from the hands 

 and wrists. Do this in the spring, and 

 keep it singed off all summer. Take an 

 ordinary lamp and turn up the blaze. 

 The object is to burn the hair, and 

 nothing else. I used to light a piece of 

 paper, but this is too harsh, and for the 

 time, nearly as bad as the sting. 



A mild-eyed bee becomes insane at 

 once when its wings strike animal 

 hair. This causes the desperate tenacity 

 with which they cling to the hair of an 

 animal or brush. And they sting at 

 once, without warning, the hand that is 

 covered with hair, when, by accident, 

 their wings touch it, and how much 

 more when they throw themselves 

 against it on purpose to get up a fuss? 

 But the hand that is singed and smooth, 

 and very slightly rubbed over with 

 honey and propolis, escapes with im- 

 punity, as a rule. A lady's hand is cer- 

 tainly well adapted to handling bees. 



Like most bee-men I work bare- 

 handed and bare-faced, and escape with 

 very little stinging, but I carefully ob- 

 serve certain little matters that experi- 

 ence has pointed out, and sharply com- 

 pelled recognition. Everybody knows 

 how to make slow motions, and move in 

 a decrepit manner, but, in passing from 

 one hive to another, forgets to puff a 

 little smoke over the hands. If the 

 hands are moist with perspiration, the 

 smoke will cling all the better. When a 

 bee stings, wet the spot with saliva, and 

 smoke it with hot smoke. The pain will 

 immediately be lessened. 



I know of no remedy so good as hot 

 smoke, and so easily applied without 

 loss of time. Time is an important fac- 

 tor, and the smoke penetrates the wound 

 at the same time as the poison and 

 saliva. Smoke is the safest antidote to 

 pain. It can even prevent and quiet 

 lockjaw. 



A^dangerous wound with the blood 

 heated up in hot weather, can be safely 

 treated with smoke. Hold a piece of 

 smoking punk-wood so that the warm 

 smoke will envelop the wound for five 



or ten minutes about twice a day. Ob- 

 serve the patient, and be convinced. 



A man in harvest time, and in the 

 heat of the day and of his work, slid off 

 a stack and landed on a fork. It went 

 through the center of the hand and be- 

 tween the bones. At this season of the 

 year, and with the poisonous wheat rust 

 on the tines, this was bad. He was gone 

 to the house about an hour, smoked his 

 hand thoroughly, and went to work 

 again, and after that felt no more pain, 

 and lost no more time. Is this strange ? 

 Not at all. This has been repeated, 

 to my knowledge, time and again. 



A pine sliver, one inch long and one- 

 eighth of an inch thick, was driven into 

 the center of the thumb from the end, 

 and broken off, and the flesh closed over 

 it, between the bone and thumb-nail. It 

 was so imbedded, that no sliver was 

 supposed to be there. It was smoked 

 three times a day. No time was lost 

 from work nor sleep, and when the 

 sliver was removed after ten days, it 

 came out opposite the way of entry. 



Another and chief reason for using 

 smoke on bee-stings is to destroy the 

 scent of the poison, so that other bees 

 will not smell it as you go right along 

 with your work. 



My better half says they sting me just 

 as much as any one, but I do not tell of 

 it. This is error. I sometimes work 

 all day without a sting. Last fall, in 

 overhauling the bees for winter, was 

 such a day. When near night, two 

 ladies drove up, and I went to the car- 

 riage with comb and bees in my hands, 

 and yet in finishing that colony, with 

 my mind somewhere else, I received 

 several stings. 



When you see a man approach a hive 

 and quietly take off the cover carefully, 

 and before the bees seem aware of 

 callers, puff a little smoke over them, as 

 he pulls off a thin cloth, and removes 

 one rack without a bee leaving the top, 

 except to her work, you can just mark 

 it down in your mind, that that man can 

 work all day with comfort to himself, 

 and accomplish just as much as one who 

 walks up to a hive with so heavy a boot 

 that one or more bees will take the 

 trouble to come out of the entrance and 

 around the hive to see who is there. 

 And when he rips off the cover with a 

 jerk, so as to get in the first blow of the 

 attack, he has the enemy at once in 

 front and rear, and the battle begins, 

 and only ends when the hive is closed, 

 and work hastily done instead of slowly. 

 But he says he is used to stings. I be- 

 lieve it. How could it be otherwise ? 



