62 
A YEAR AMONG THE HEES. 
the time we got to the wagon the robbers were lost, the frame 
was slipped quickly into the super on the wagon, and the 
robber cloth dropped over it. The Scotch folks at the house 
had a good laugh over the crazy couple chasing one another 
through the orchard, but we beat the bees. Under ordinary 
circumstances it would be better to take an easier plan or 
wait till dark. 
PROTECTION FROM STINGS. 
I have been a bee-keeper for twenty-five years, during the 
last eight of which I have made the production of honey my 
sole business, and yet I have not reached that point where I 
care nothing for protection from stings. When I first com- 
menced keeping bees, a sting on my hand was a serious 
affair, swelling to the shoulder, and troubling fully as much 
the second day as the first. Now, if I receive a half-dozen 
stings or more, I cannot tell an hour or two later where I was 
stung, except as a matter of memory. Yet I think that a 
sting gives me fully as much pain for the first minute or two 
now, as it did twenty-five years ago. Sometimes the pain is 
so severe that it literally makes me groan, especially if no 
one is within hearing. I sometimes wonder at those who 
scout at any sort of protection, and query whether there may 
not be just a little of a spirit of bravado about it. I think I 
cmild go through a year without any sort of protection, but I 
do not think I ever shall. A bee inside my clothing makes 
me very nervous, and I cannot go on in comfort at my work 
with a feeling of uncertainty as to where and when its little 
javelin shall pierce my flesh. If I feel it crawling on me, 
and then cease to feel it because it is on the clothing and not 
on the skin, I am in momentary dread as to where it shall 
turn up next; and it is a real relief when it stings me, for I 
know then the precise spot where it is, and have no further 
expectations from it. 
So I seldom go among the bees without a veil. I may not 
have it over my face, but it is on the hat, ready to be pulled 
down at any time. The veil is made of inexpensive material, 
