In case a person is stung, he should step back a little for a moment, as the pungent odor of the venom is likely to anger the bees and induce further stinging. The sting should be withdrawn, and if the pain is such as to prove troublesome, apply a little ammonia. The venom is an acid, and is neutralized by the alkali. Pressing over the sting with the barrel of a watch-key is also said to be of some use in staying the progress of the poison in the circulation of the blood. In case horses are badly stung, as sometimes happens, they should be taken as speedily as possible into a barn (a man, too, may escape angry bees by entering a building), where the bees will seldom follow, then wash the horses in soda water, and cover with blankets wet in cold water. THE SWEAT THEORY. It is often stated that sweaty horses and people are obnoxious to the bees, and hence, almost sure targets for their barbed arrows. In warm weather I perspire most profusely, yet am scarcely ever stung, since I have learned to control my nerves. I once kept my bees in the front yard--they looked beautiful on the green lawn--within two rods of a main thoroughfare, and not infrequently let my horse, covered with sweat upon my return from a drive, crop the grass, while cooling off, right in the same yard. Of course, there was some danger, but I never knew my horse to get stung. Why, then, the theory? May not the more frequent stings be consequent upon the warm, nervous condition of the individual? The man is more ready to strike and jerk, the horse to stamp and switch. The switching of the horse's tail, like the whisker trap of a full beard, will anger even a good-natured bee. I should dread the motions more than the sweat, though it may be true that there is a peculiarity in the odor from either the sensible or insensible perspiration of some persons, that angers the bees and provokes the use of their terrible weapons. CHAPTER XIV. COMB FOUNDATION. Every apiarist of experience knows that empty combs in frames, comb-guides in the sections, to tempt the bees and to insure the proper position of the full combs, in fact, combs of almost any kind or shape, are of great importance. So every skillful apiarist is very careful to save all drone-comb that is cut out of the brood-chamber--where it is worse than useless, as it brings with it myriads of those useless gormands, the drones--to kill the eggs, remove the brood, or extract the honey, and to transfer it to the sections. He is equally careful to keep all his worker-comb, so long as the cells are of proper size to domicile full-sized larvæ, and never to sell any comb, or even comb-honey, unless a much greater price makes it desirable. No wonder, then, if comb is so desirable, that German thought and Yankee ingenuity have devised means of giving the bees at least a start in this important, yet expensive work of comb-building, and hence the origin of another great aid to the apiarist--comb foundation (Fig. 65).