This dress is the most complete mode of securing an operator from bees or wasps; but if he be adventurous enough to brave their attacks, I recommend him first to drink or rinse his mouth with a little malt liquor; to wash his face and hands with the same, and to approach them with a bunch of sweet herbs in his hand, gently fanning his face with them, whilst he is in the vicinity of their domicile, and breathing as much as possible through his nose. (_Vide_ Part II. Bee's Sting.) In case of an actual or threatened attack, (the latter of which may be known by the peculiar noise which precedes it,) a defence by striking at them would be highly imprudent. An attempt may be first made to put them gently away; should that not succeed, the only resource is to retire quietly, and to conceal the face in shrubs or boughs, if any be near, or if not with the hands spread over it. The bees will then generally desist from further attack, and go home. The smart quick strokes of the wings, when bees are angry and prepared to sting, give a sound very different from their usual buz. "Instead," says Mr. Hunter, "of that soft contented noise made by the bee when coming home loaded on a fine evening,--when a bee meditates an attack with its sting, it makes a very different one." There is a piercing shrillness in the sound, as the author and some of his friends have often experienced. Messrs. Kirby and Spence, after quoting a passage from Mr. White's Natural History, relative to the feigned attacks of some wild bees near Lewes in Sussex, which "with a sharp and hostile sound dash and strike round the heads and faces of intruders," make the following observations. "The hive-bee will sometimes have recourse to the same expedient, when her hive is approached too near, and thus give you notice what you may expect, if you do not take her warning and retire.--Humble-bees when disturbed, whether out of the nest or in it, assume some very grotesque and at the same time threatening attitudes. If you put your finger to them, they will either successively or simultaneously lift up the three legs of one side; turn themselves upon their back, bend up their anus and show their sting accompanied by a drop of poison. Sometimes they will even spirt out that liquor." CHAPTER XXIII. FEEDING. A stock of bees will, generally, consume a pound of honey per month, betwixt the 1st of October and the 1st of March: from this time to the end of May, they will consume two pounds per month; _if the spring be unfavourable for gathering early, and less than ten pounds of honey per stock have been left for their winter's support, and that winter have proved mild, the bees should be fed early in the season, and sometimes through a considerable part of the month of May_.