riFTT YEARS AMONG THE BEES 225 



known to all beekeepers. I am not sure whether I learned it 

 by instinct, or from the writings of G. M. Doolittle. If a bee 

 stings my hand I instantly strike the hand with much force 

 upon my leg, with a sort of quick, wiping motion. This 

 mashes the bee, generally, and rubs out the sting at the same 

 time. 



SCOLDING BEES. 



If one thinks of the thousands or millions or bees in a 

 large apiary, it wiU be seen that comparatively few bees make 

 any attack. Sometimes a single bee will threaten and scold me 

 by the hour, perhaps finally stinging me by getting 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 annoy- 

 ance 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 ob- 

 servation 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 general onslaught. Truth obliges me 

 to say that I have sometimes been so badly stung by one of 

 these, when working at them, that I have taken refuge in in- 

 glorious 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 prominent 

 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 may be sure I am not very warmly 



