out at all interfering with those who do not molest them.
Frequently, however, there will be a few cross bees which come buzzing
around our ears, and seem determined to sting without the very slightest
provocation. From such lawless bees no person without a bee-dress is
absolutely safe. By repeated examinations I have ascertained that
_disease_ is the cause of such unreasonable irritability. I am never
afraid that a healthy bee will attack me unless unusually provoked; and
am always sure as soon as I hear one singing about my ears that it is
incurably diseased. If such a bee is dissected it will be found to
exhibit the unmistakable evidence that a peculiar kind of dysentery has
already fastened upon its system. In the first stages of this complaint
the insect is very irritable, refuses to labor, and seems unable or
unwilling to distinguish friend from foe. As the disease progresses, it
becomes stupid, its body swells up, and is filled with a great mass of
yellow matter, and being unable to fly, it crawls on the ground, in
front of the hive, and speedily perishes. I have never been able to
ascertain the cause of this singular malady, nor can I suggest any
remedy for it. I hope that some scientific Apiarians will investigate it
closely, for if it could only be remedied, we might have hundreds of
colonies on our premises and in our gardens, and yet be perfectly safe.

A person thoroughly acquainted with the leading principles of
bee-culture as they are set forth in this Manual, will _never under any
circumstances_ find it necessary to provoke to fury a colony of bees.
Let it be remembered that nothing can be more terribly vindictive than
a family of bees when thoroughly aroused by gross abuse or unskillful
treatment. Let their hive be suddenly overthrown or violently jarred, or
let them be provoked by the presence of a sweaty horse, or any animal
offensive to them, so that the anger at first manifested by a few, is
extended to the whole community, and the most severe and sometimes
dangerous consequences may ensue. In the same way in the management of
the animals most useful to man, by ignorance or abuse, they may be
roused to a state of frantic desperation, and limbs may be broken, and
often lives destroyed; and yet no one possessed of common sense,
attributes such calamities, except in very rare instances, to any thing
else than carelessness or want of skill. Let it be remembered that even
the most peaceable stock of bees