ROBBING. 



378 



ROBBING. 



After the season begins to fail, you may 

 expect that every colony in your apiary will 

 be tried. As a rule, any fair colony will 

 have sentinels posted to guard the entrance 

 as soon as there is any need of such pre- 

 caution. The bee that presumes to think 

 it may enter for plunder will be led off by 

 "• the ear," if we may so express it, and this 

 will be repeated until it learns that there is 

 no chance for peculation at that house. At 

 the close of the honey harvest we should be 

 sure that there are no feeble hives that may 

 be overpowered, for one such may start the 

 fashion of robbing, and make it a much 

 harder matter to control the propensity. 

 An apiary, like a community, may get so de- 

 moralized that thieving becomes a univer- 

 sal mania. "A stitch in time will save" a 

 great many more than nine in this case. Be 

 sure that each colony has the entrance con- 

 tracted, and, in fact, the space occupied by 

 the bees also, in proportion to their num- 

 bers. Give them only so many combs as 

 they can cover, if you wish them defend- 

 ed properly from either moths or robbers. 

 Colonies without either queen or brood are 

 not apt to fight for their stores very vigor- 

 ously, so it will be well to see that they have 

 either one or both, should there be an attack 

 made on them. It is hardly necessary to re- 

 peat what has been said about Italians be- 

 ing better to defend themselves than the 

 common bees. A few Italians will often 

 protect the hive better than a whole swarm 

 of black bees. 



HOW TO KNOW ROBBER-BEES. 



It sometimes puzzles beginners exceed- 

 ingly to know whether the bees that come 

 out are robbers, or ordinary inmates of the 

 hive. 



When the robber-bee approaches a hive, it 

 has a sly, guilty look, and flies with its legs 

 spread in a rather unusual way, as if it 

 wanted to be ready to use its heels as well 

 as wings if required. It will move cau- 

 tiously up to the entrance, and quickly dodge 

 back as soon as it sees a bee coming toward 

 it. If it is promptly grabbed on attempting 

 to go in, you need have but little fear. When 

 a bee goes in and you can not definitely de- 

 termine whether it is a robber or not, keei) 

 a close watch on all the bees coming out. 

 This is a very sure way of telling when rob- 

 bers have got a start, even at its very com- 

 mencement. A bee, in going to the fields, 

 comes out leisurely, and takes wing with but 

 little trouble, because it has no load. Its 

 body is also slim, for it has no honey with it. 



A bee that has stolen a load is generally 

 very plump and full; and as it comes out 

 it has a hurried and "guilty look;" besides, 

 it is almost always wiping its mouth, like 

 a man who has just come out of a beer-shop. 

 Most of all, it finds it a little difficult to 

 take wing, as bees ordinarily do, because 

 of the weight. In Bee-hunting we relat- 

 ed how a bee, laden with thick undiluted 

 honey, would stagger under its load before 

 it could take wing for the final trip home. 

 Well, the bee, when coming out of the hive 

 with honey it has very likely just uncap- 

 ped, feels instinctively that it will be quite 

 apt to tumble unless able to take vdng 

 from some elevated position, and therefore 

 crawls up the side of the hive before launch- 

 ing out. When first taking wing it falls a 

 little by the weight of its load, before its 

 wings are fully under control, and therefore, 

 instead of starting out as a bee ordinarily 

 does, it takes a downward curve, coming 

 quite near the ground before rising safely 

 and surely. With a little practice you can 

 tell a robber at first glance by its way of 

 coming out of the hive, particularly by that 

 fashion of running up the side of the hive 

 before taking wing. 



HOW TO TELL WHERE THE ROBBERS BE- 

 LONG. 



If you are a bee-hunter you will probably 

 line them to their hive without any trouble ; 

 but if you are not, you can easily find from 

 which hive they come by sprinkling them 

 with flour as they come out of the hive being 

 robbed. Now watch the other hives, and see 

 where you find the fioured bees going in. We 

 can generally tell in a very few minutes, by 

 the excited actions of the robbers, already 

 mentioned. If you find that the robbing is 

 confined to one or two colonies, as is often 

 the case, put them down cellar and keep 

 them there for several days where they can 

 not incite other colonies. Reference will 

 be made to this further on. 



HOW TO STOP ROBBING. 



As to the best mode of procedure, a good 

 deal will depend on circumstances. When 

 bees in the whole apiary are robbing in a 

 wholesale way from the honey -house, or 

 from any place where a supply of honey or 

 syrup is kept, the obvious remedy is to shut 

 the door of the dwelling to cut ofi the sup- 

 ply. If the bees have entered a barrel 

 through the bunghole, the chances are we 

 shall Hiul, after the head of the barrel is 

 taken out, that there is a peck or more of 

 bees swimming around in the honey. If 



