Dear Sir

Your friend Innes has forwarded your letter of the 30^th. Ult^o: to me respecting “Bees.”¹ If my memory serves me aright you & I have already met before & the same subject was then the magnet which drew us together. Were not you present at a lecture which I delivered on Bees at Southend Lewisham, & did not I lend you part of my MS. afterwards referring to the construction of cells?² But be this as it may I now gladly turn to the points of enquiry in your letter. They are, I hold, very fully answered in a letter I wrote to Notes & Queries in a reply to a correspondent who started the idea that “bees lose their life by stinging” is a “popular error” & asking “what foundation there was for it”. I will therefore refer you to that (N. & Q. Vol XI. N^o. 295. page 489)³   I had forgotten what gave rise to it or even the drift of my answer but on reading it now I am sure that it must be that to which Innes referred you.⁴ I will now add a few remarks to my former statements which will touch the points of your letter, & you may make any use you please of what I state. Bees & wasps are not, on this point to be placed exactly in the same category. The bee never stings until previously brought to a state of intense excitement and when once the act has been committed she seems no longer mistress of her actions   Were she able to calm herself immediately after planting her sting, and if the offended person would likewise be calm & allow the bee the time & opportunity to release itself (two contingencies most unlikely to concur) I believe it possible that the poor bee might escape with sting & life entire. But as soon as she has fixed herself by her sting to the flesh she begins to tug away & twist about till the bag of poison & sting together part from the rest of the body. But the moment this catastrophe has taken place, all the excitement gives way at once, the death-wound is felt & she does not even seem to care to escape the vengeance of her late enemy.

The wasp, on the contrary, goes to work with far more coolness & conscious strength. She is an idle adventurer, devoid of all the home ties of the busy bee, who lives by plunder whose hand is against every one & every one’s hand against her. Her armour both offensive & defensive is proportionally stronger than that of the thrifty bee. The one is of the agricultural labourer, the other of the (Amazon warrior) type. If the wasp stings & has the opportunity of escape she will get away uninjured as is very often the case. Her stinging apparatus is much more firmly fixed than that of the bee & (I have been told but cannot vouch for it) the sting is either not barbed or much more slightly barbed than that of the bee.

To save my bees lives when operating upon them & unavoidably irritating them I use thick woollen gloves (ringwood gloves)⁵ or two pair, & woollen trousers & coat (not fustian or corderoy or leather) thick enough to prevent the sting from reaching so deep as to the skin, because the barbs do not act to any injurious extent in clinging to the woollen texture & the bees sting & sting again to their hearts content without injury to me or to themselves.

I have been writing all this in the midst of a shower of conversation & repartee from some 6 different members of my family in the same room. Forgive therefore incoherence & lengthy verbiage. I believe I have answered your questions. If not, or I can help you on any other point, pray write again to me direct

Y^rs. truly | (Rev) John D Glennie Jun