I02 The Honey-Makers 



But few of us are self-controlled enough for that — and 

 moreover what guarantee have we that she would not, find- 

 ing herself free, angry and still potent, turn about and 

 reward our forbearance with another stab? We prefer her 

 death to our own pain, so we hasten her movements and 

 shorten her life. 



For the wages of anger in this case are death. Deprived 

 of her sting and poison-sac and incidentally torn and 

 wounded internally she soon dies — a sadder and a wiser 

 bee — but as is often the case with those who learn wisdom 

 by experience, acquiring that valuable attribute too late to 

 profit by it. 



When she thus leaves her sting as a legacy in the wound 

 the poison continues to be forced out by the involuntary 

 action of the muscles surrounding the poison-sac and of 

 those driving the sting, which is the reason the sting should 

 be extracted at once, a matter very easily accomplished. 



The sting should not be grasped between the fingers, as 

 this squeezes the poison out of the sac into the v/ound, but 

 it should be brushed or scraped out in a direction opposite 

 to that in which it entered, or lifted out by inserting the 

 blade of a knife or the finger-nail beneath it, as one with- 

 draws a tack. 



The ancients knew the fatal consequences to the bee of 

 using the sting, and Aristotle says: — 



" When they have stung anything they perish, for they 

 cannot withdraw their sting from the wound without 

 tearing their own entrails ; but they are frequently saved, 

 if the person stung will take care to press the sting from 

 the wound ; but when its sting is lost, the bee must perish." 



And Pliny gives us the following : — 



" Nature has provided bees with a sting, which is in- 

 serted in the abdomen of the insect. There are some 

 who think that at the first blow which they inflict with this 



