Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1906-05-31
TIE STING OF THE HONEY BEE.
Used by the Insects Only in Seif-De
fence-How Beekeepers Avert
Dancer

The sting of the honey bee is a
very complicated apparatus, and to
the student OF nature proves to be
an interesting study. To the boy
who is familiar with the sting from
a practical point of view only there
is nothing attractive about it. He,
like many grown people, carries the
idea that the principal mission Of the
honey bee is 10 make application Of
its sting, and when a bee comes near
them they become very uneasy and
nervous. Often the first thing one
will do is to strike at the buzzing in
sect. He does not realize that such
a procedure invites the bee to make
the very application so feared. The
bee is provided with a sting as a
means OF protection and defence, and
never becomes aggressive without
good cause. When working or bios
SONS or obtaining a drink at the
spring, the watering trough or the
mud puddle, the bee seems to con
slider herself a trespasser, and does
not take offence at being driven away,
but changes her attitude when We
disturb her hive She will fight like
a tiger, and is ready to make a sacri-
fee of her life at slight provocatiOn
for singing means the loss of the
sting to the bee, and this has death
in sequence.
The sting of the bee IS composed
of two lances lying side by side, held
in place by a sheath They are vi
ciously barbed at the points with ten
hooklike projections, which point
backward, like the barbs on fish
hooks. The wound which a bee sting
leaves after being removed amounts
to almost nothing, it is so minute.
If it was not for the poison sac con-
nected with the sting, and whose con-
tents are emptied and injected into
the wound when the bee applies the
sting, it would be so harmless as
rot to be noticed. Small as the guam
thy Of injected poison may be, it
proves effective 1t is therefore we'll
TO take proper precautions that we
may not receive stings. The bee
keeper, who is very naturally bent on
getting all the profits out of his bees
that he can, must necessarily inter
fere with his hives more or less at
times, and although his intentions
may be ever so good, his bees will
resent any CT his interference. 1t
is possible so ca efully and slowly
to open a hive that the bees take
no notice of this, but generally they
will put up fight, unless the apiarist
can keep the upper hand of them from
the start.
1t has been found that blowing a
little smoke into their ''eyes' will
hold their anger in check. The So
called bee smoker has been invented
for this purpose, and no beekeeper
in the land would think of handling
bees without such a machine Many
are the patterns Of bee smokers. /
give here the Cornell smoker as one
of the good ones. The professional
beekeeper will select one with very
large fire barrel, while the small one
will find the one here illustrated
ample for all he may want to do
with it.
Phosphate sacks, which have been
exposed to the weather for a time,
make very good and handy fuel. To
prepare for use, roll up the sack as
tightly as possible till you have a
roll that will just fill the fire bar
rel of the smoker and slip in reason
able easy. Tie strings around the
roll every four Or five inches; then
with a sharp Ratchet cut into suitable
lengths and preserve these cartridges
for future use. One end of each may
be moistened with saltpetre water and
then dried This will facilitate the
lighting of it. Wood, which is suf
ficiently decayed to crumble easily,
makes a good substitute. Planer
shavings also answer the purpose.
The beekeeper who has occasion to
use the smoker frequently will soon
find out how to handle this implement
and what kind of fuel suits him best.
Now VOrly T|Y-ibunp