226 FORTY YEARS AMONG THE BEES. 



SCOLDING BEES. 



If one thinks of the thousands or milHons of bees in 

 a large apiary, it will be seen that comparatively few 

 bees make any attack. Sometimes a single bee will 

 threaten and scold me by the hour, perhaps finally sting- 

 ing me by gettmg into my hair or whiskers, and for 

 aught I know the same bee may keep up the same thing 

 for days — I mean the scolding, not the stinging. It is 

 sometimes worth while to get rid of the annoyance by 

 stepping to one side and knocking it down with a stick 

 by a few rapid strokes back and forth in front of my 

 face. I often mash it by slapping my hands together. 



CROSS COLONIES. 



Sometimes the bees have seemed very cross, and a 

 little observation has shown these bees to proceed from a 

 particular part of the apiary, and really from only one 

 hive. A careless observer might have said all the bees in 

 the apiary were cross. I have had a few colonies so cross 

 that merely walking by the hive was the signal for a gen- 

 eral onslaught. Truth obliges me to say that I have some- 

 times been so badly stung by one of these, when working 

 at them, that I have taken refuge in inglorious flight, 

 glad to get a respite and scrape out the stings. Just why 

 there should be one or two of these in a year in such 

 marked contrast with others I cannot say. The only 

 remedy I had was to kill the queen. 



DRESS FOR THE HOTTEST WEATHER. 



During the principal part of the honey-flow, a promi- 

 nent element of hardship is the endurance of the heat. 

 Sometimes the heat really has made me sick, so that in 

 spite of a press of work, I have been obliged to give up 

 and lie down for an hour or more. At such times you 



