ROBBING. 



377 



ROBBING. 



they were going to sw;irm, still more 

 when they rnshed right i)ast tlie feeder and 

 took wing for— where do you suppose? the 

 honey-house door, of course. How should 

 they reason otherwise, than that it had again 

 been left open, and that was where these in- 

 comers had found their rich loadsV On find- 

 ing it closed, back to the hive they came, to 

 repeat the manreuvre over and over. 



As another evidence of the wonderful in 

 telligence and almost reasoning power of 

 the honey-bee, we will make an extract from 

 Gleanings in Bee Culture. This item was 

 written by A. I. Root. 



Ou the ]3tli of September ii shipment of honey 

 eame in, with two tSO-pound cans so badly damaged 

 1 hat the contents liad leaked out and run through 

 tlie floor of the box car. The railroad company had 

 iig-reed to take the car away at half-past ten; and as 

 the weather was cool the bees had not discovered it 

 at that time. Unfortunately tlie company failed to 

 move the car as agreed, and I knew nothing of it till 

 [ was appi'ised something was wrong by the unusual 

 number of bees swarming around the windows and 

 doors of the factory. Then T made a little row in 

 the camp. We carried a hose over to the leaky car 

 and washed away the honey, cleaning it from the 

 gearing, ironwork, and under side of the car until 

 the bees were pretty well satisfied there was nothing 

 more to get, although they were hanging around in 

 great numbers. To prevent the bees from getting 

 tiie honey inside the car, our boys covered the floor 

 pretty well with sawdust. About three o'clock the 

 engine came around and pulled the car away. A 

 little after four, some men who were loading wheat 

 informed us our bees were making them a great 

 deal of trouble. I at once jumped to the conclusion 

 that the company, instead of taking the car en- 

 tirely away, as agreed, had only removed it to an- 

 other location in the yard, and that the sticky car 

 was still enticing our bees. I went over, saw the 

 sawdust on the floor on wliich they were dumping 

 bags of wheat, and concluded it was the honeycar; 

 but while I was puzzling my head to account for the 

 fact that the ironwoi-k under this car showed no 

 trace of honey or water either, a man called to me 

 and pointed to ajiof ft er car in still another location, 

 just swarming with bees around its door, inside and 

 out. Then I " caught on." Do you see the point, 

 friends ? There was not a particle of honey in or 

 around either of the two cars I was looking at 

 After the honey-car had been pulled clear out of 

 town, the bees, not willing to give up, proceeded to 

 " leave no stone unturned," and were investigating 

 overyear having an open door that, in tlieir judg- 

 ment, might be the one that had been pulled away. 

 When they found one with sawdust spread over the 

 floor they naturally concluded that was the car, and 

 got down on their hands and knees (figuratively) 

 searching in the sawdust for the honey. The other 

 bees, seeing them thus employed, naturally con- 

 cluded this was the place. Others, having learned 

 that one box car contained so rich a find, concluded 

 that a search through all the cars in the yard might 

 possibly reward them for their investigation; ami 

 it was only in tlie cool of the evening that they were 

 willing to stop digging in that sawdust, and be con- 

 vinced there were no more honey-cars about. 



Now, friends, it may nut be true that liees rrcog- 

 nize colors, l)ut t hey certainly do take in tlie geiieriil 

 makeup of objects. They are not only able to rec- 

 ognize a hive, but they know a box car at sight; and 

 even if you move it to a different location they take 

 in its general appearance so tliat they know pretty 

 well how to find it in case of removal. I am not pre- 

 pared to prove that they i-ead the letters " Big Four " 

 on the side of that car, nor that they renif mbered 

 there was an enormous figure 4 printed in white on 

 the red door of the car tlicy wanted; but 1 tell you 

 they came pretty close to it. 



Of course, bees have particular notes, as 

 for joy, sorrow, anger, despair, etc., which are 

 produced by the wings, usually when flying; 

 but we are quite sure they are unable to 

 communicate to each other more than a sin- 

 gle idea. In other words, they have no fac- 

 ulty of telling their fellows that a lot of hon- 

 ey is to be had in a feeder at the entrance, 

 and that it would better be brought in quick- 

 ly, or other bees may find it. A bee goes 

 out in the spring, and, by smelling around 

 the buds, discovers honey and pollen ; when 

 it comes into the hive the others see it and 

 start out to hunt up the soitrce of supply in 

 a similar way. For further information on 

 this subject, see Swarming. 



If you will turn back and read Anger of 

 Bees, you will get a very good idea of the 

 causes that start bees to robbing. Read, al- 

 so, Bee-hunting, Feeding, etc. As a gen- 

 eral thing, bees will never rob so long as 

 plenty of honey is to be had in the fields. 

 During a bountiful flow we have tried in vain 

 to get bees to take any notice of honey left 

 around the apiary. At such times we can 

 use the extractor right in the open air, close 

 to the sides of the hives, if need be. On one 

 occasion we remember leaving a comb of un- 

 sealed honey on the top of a hive from morn- 

 ing until noon, and not a bee touched it. 

 It seems they preferred to go to the clover- 

 fields in the regular way rather than to take 

 several pounds from the top of a neighbor- 

 ing hive. We can readily suppose that they 

 did not have to visit anything like a hundred 

 blossoms at this time, and perhaps they se- 

 cured a load in going to not more than a 

 half - dozen. Such a state of affairs is not 

 very usual in our locality. We have very 

 few d ys during the season when it w^ould 

 be stife to use the extractor for a whole day 

 in the open air, the bees generally learning 

 to follow the freshly uncapped combs about, 

 and that it is easier than going to the fields. 

 The first indication of robbing which you 

 will probably have will be the cool and 

 wicked way of stinging that we have de- 

 scribed in Anger of Bees. 



