Bee-dress

Timid Apiarians, and all who are liable to suffer severely from the

sting of a bee, should by all means furnish themselves with the

protection of a bee-dress. The great objection to gauze-wire veils or

other materials of which such a dress has been usually made, is that

they obstruct clear vision, so highly important in all operations,

besides producing such excessive heat and perspiration, as to make the

Apiarian pecu iarly offensive to the bees. I prefer to use what I shall

call a _bee-hat_, of entirely novel construction. It is made of wire

cloth, the meshes of which are too fine to admit a bee, and yet coarse

enough to allow a free circulation of air, and to permit distinct sight.

The wire cloth should first be fastened together in a circular shape,

like a hat, and large enough to go very easily over the head; its top

may be of cotton cloth, and it should have the same material fastened

around its lower edge, and furnished with strings to draw it so closely

around the neck and shoulders that a bee cannot creep under it. Woolen

stockings may then be drawn over the hands, or better still, India

Rubber gloves, such as are now in very common use, may be worn; these

gloves are impenetrable to the sting of a bee, and yet are so soft and

pliant as scarcely in the least to interfere with the operations of the

Apiarian.



If it were not for the diseased bees of which I have several times

spoken, such precautions would be entirely unnecessary. The best

Apiarians as it is, dispense with them, even at the cost of a sting now

and then.