9 
the attention of the bees on the combs. The most effective 
behaviour in such circumstances would be to rush out of 
doors and attack the intruding animal with all the might of 
thousands of stings. By such prompt action the home and 
property of the colony might be efficiently preserved. 
Assuming that this instinct of self-preservation has been 
inherited by modern bees, we can readily understand why 
it is that the clumsy manipulator is so promptly and severely 
punished for any jarring or banging of the hive. 
But another enemy of quite a different type might menace 
the home and property of the bees. There might be a forest 
fire, sweeping all before it, and reducing the great trees to 
blackened stumps. The bees which survived such a fire, and 
transmitted the instinct which made for self-preservation, 
behaved exactly as human beings do in similar circumstances. 
As soon as the clouds of smoke blowing in at their doors 
indicated the proximity of an enemy against which stings 
were of no avail, the provident insects rushed to their stores, 
while there was yet time, and began to fill their honey-sacs 
with honey. If the worst came to the worst, and the fire 
spread to their own tree, they could abandon their combs 
stored full of honey, pollen and brood, and go out with their 
queen to find a new home. Every honey-sac being filled 
with honey, the homeless bees would be in the position of a 
swarm, having enough stores with which to begin the world 
over again in some hollow tree that the fire had not reached. 
When we know what smoke means to the bees we can 
use it with much greater effect and with less discomfort to 
them. It is not necessary to stupefy the bees—as many 
erroneously suppose—so long as one uses a little smoke now 
and again to keep up the suggestion of fire; one must avoid, 
meanwhile, any shaking or jarring of the hive that might 
suggest an animal robber. The smoker, therefore, when not 
in actual use, should be set with the nozzle upward, in which 
position it will draw like a chimney, and be always ready for 
the moment when the bees show signs of recovering from 
the notion that they are threatened with fire. 
