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.