This Day in Norwood History-July 14, 1939-Unwanted “Eavesdroppers” On Very Bad “Bee-havior”

The unwelcome “eavesdroppers” at the Tanneyhill house on Bay Street are getting all hot and bothered about attempts to smoke them out of the improvised hive in a hole under the roof. Mr. C. M. Anderson, 15 Horn Street, an instructor at the Norfolk Agricultural School, was rudely stung on the arms five times last Wednesday morning.

Mr. Anderson claims that the smoker he uses counteracts the poison of the bee stings, but they looked pretty sore just the same. All this excitement over the bees started last Saturday when Mr. Bacon at the Norfolk Aggie informed Mr. Anderson that the bees were there on Day Street and that he could have them “if he could get ’em ”

Now Mr. Anderson had lost all his own bees last winter, so he donned his armor (helmet and mask) and set out to do his stuff. Everything went wrong from, the very beginning when the queen bee refused to leave her hive and reign in the bright, white new one that Mr. Anderson offered.

The workers won’t leave here until they have at least a satisfactory substitute, (aren’t they fickle?), so probably Mr. Anderson will have to purchase a new queen or provide some eggs so the workers can hatch one. “This will take some time,” he assures us, so if you happen to walk by the house, don’t think it’s burglars.

Mr. Anderson graduated from the Norfolk Agricultural School himself in 1930. Bees are his special hobby, and he purchased his first hive from Charles Ellis, the “bee man’ ’in Westwood.

This summer Mr. Anderson spent a little spare time at a Revere Beach concession watching the bees. He admits he got “stung” to the tune of $1.10 for a phoney good luck charm from a wily fortune teller. He said he could make four or five wishes a day and they would all come true. He wished this week that those bees would bee-have and go home with him.

(All articles were originally published in the Norwood Messenger unless otherwise noted)