18 FOLLOWING THE BEE LINE 
so that no bees were pinched or crushed against the 
other combs. I felt quite self-satisfied and ready to 
demonstrate my skill again. 
I wore a white middy blouse with dark blue serge 
bands on the cuffs, fastening close at the wrists, and 
dark stockings with white shoes. I mention this 
because I learned something through wearing that 
particular costume which I had not heard in a lec¬ 
ture or read in a beekeeping manual—namely, that 
bees invariably choose dark, strongly contrasting 
colors for attack when annoyed. 
As I have intimated before, my brother’s interest 
in bees had not been of long duration, and I soon 
found out that he had been practicing the Let Alone 
Method and was merely a bee-robber—not a bee¬ 
keeper! The parts of the hives where the eggs 
are laid and the most interesting life of the colony 
takes place had been untouched for several years, 
and the tops of the frames had been almost com¬ 
pletely glued over with wax and a gummy, resinous 
substance called propolis. 
It seemed a well-nigh hopeless job to pry out the 
combs, and furthermore, the bees were unused to 
interference and resented intrusion. Their gentle 
humming had long since changed to a belligerent 
buzz. Those dark serge cuff bands were the main 
