CHAPTER 5 

 Handling the Bees 



We were already keeping bees on a large scale before the in- 

 vention of a practical bee-smoker. We used a piece of punk 

 or of dry rotten wood, upon which we had to blow in order to 

 produce a sufficient amount of smoke. The writer remembers 

 being often dizzy from blowing his breath upon the rotten wood 

 that he held in his fingers and which gave little enough smoke 

 when the bees were cross. The bellows smokers, invented by 

 Quinby and improved by Bingham, are a greater boon than 

 our younger beekeepers, who have never had to do without 

 them, can realize. 



There are men who are either immune to bees or whom 

 the bees do not sting. They handle them without smoke, 

 without veil, and seem to care nothing for angry bees. We 

 were not, and we are not yet, of that kind. The writer was very 

 much afraid of bees in his young days. It was not until an 

 overwhelming honey crop came that he conquered his fear of 

 stings through enthusiasm. So the timid beekeeper should take 

 courage. But we never believed in handling bees without 

 smoke, using it, not plentifully, but judiciously, when opening 

 hives. Many an enemy has been created to the keeping of bees, 

 in suburbs, in villages, along the public highway, by careless 

 handling of the colonies by a beekeeper who is not afraid. He 

 does not get stung, but his neighbors, or the casual passer-by, 

 are the victims. Allow us to relate an incident. 



We had a friend, now deceased, in the neighboring city 

 of Keokuk. His home was located on the edge of the bluffs, 

 with no neighbors between it and the Mississippi River flowing 

 below, 200 feet away, an ideal place for the avoidance of bee 

 stings. But he had neighbors above him, up the bluflf. He was 

 in the habit of opening his colonies without smoke. The bees 

 never stung him. He told the writer one day that he would have 

 to sell his bees, a dozen colonies or so, because the neighbors 

 complained of stings. He could not understand why they 

 should sting them, when they did not sting him. After this 



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