1 Aprit, 1902.] QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. 271 
BEE NOTES. 
From the A B C of Bee Culture. 
Best temperature for a beehive-house, 45 degrees Fahr. 
To supply bees with water, get a piece of board about 1 foot square, and 
with a grooving-saw plough grooves from one end to the other, taking care they 
do not run out. Then cut a groove from each corner to the opposite one, and 
a couple more across the grain of the wood, near the middle. Make the grooves 
about }-inch deep. Invert a jar of water on the centre of the board, and the 
grooves will just keep full of water as long as there is any in the jar, and yet 
they will never run over. The bees stand on the walls of wood separating the 
grooves, and are in no danger of drowning or even of getting a wetting. This 
also makes the best “feeder” ever invented, using sweetened water instead of 
water only. ; 
“When a bee has inserted its sting into your face or hand, and you drag the 
insect off, sting and poison-bag are left behind, and the bee is done for. The 
sting is barbed, and the barbs prevent its withdrawal from the flesh. How 
would the bee extract the sting? Let him show you. Allow him to sting you 
deeply on the hand. Don’t disturb him. Grin and bear the pain. You will 
see that he first gives a little pull to see if the sting will come out. Then he 
starts walking round in a circle, and turns it out like a screw auger, and flies 
off happy. 
0 open a hive without being stung, take off the top and remove the sheet. 
Decide then which frame will come out easiest, and slide the rest a little way 
from it. By sliding two or three on each side you will get all the room you 
want to lift out the frame without pinching a single bee. After making room 
in this way, draw out the frame very slowly. You may do this, if the bees are 
fairly quiet, without using smoke and without being stung. ' 
To discover the hive that robbers belong to, sprinkle them with flour as 
they come out of the hive being robbed. Now watch what hives they go into. 
Tf the robbers are going in and out rapidly and running over the sentinels, shut 
