ROBBING. 



379 • 



ROBBmO. 



robbing became very bad we would drive the 

 bung into the barrel, and then, after the up- 

 roar has quieted down, remove it and run 

 the honey through a strainer from the bung- 

 hole. 



Bees soon stop robbing wtien all sweets 

 within their reach are removed or so pro- 

 tected that they can not get at them; but 

 even then the apiary will be out of balance 

 for the rest of the day, and more or less for 

 two or three days following, because the 

 bees will be trying to tind where they can 

 find more sweets. 



Sometimes robbing is started by some one 

 in the neighborhood making sweet pickles, 

 canning fruit, or do- 

 ing any thing that 

 causes a strong odor 

 of sweet or sour dur- 

 ing its preparation : 

 then the only thing 

 the bee-keeper can 

 do is to have the 

 house screened ; or if 

 the case is very bad, 

 and the bees keep on 

 " sticking their noses 

 into other people's 

 business," we would 

 recommend smoking 

 the entrances of all 

 the hives with tobac- 

 co smoke. Half a 

 dozen whiffs of 

 smoke should be 

 blown into each en- 

 trance, one after the 



other. In half an hour the dose should be 

 repeated. This will cause the bees to quiet 

 down until such time as the canning- work 

 or the pickle-making is over at the house 

 where bees are "making themselves too 

 familiar." 



The best treatment for a general robbing 

 throughout the apiary is prevention. The 

 screen doors and other openings into the 

 honey-house should be self-closing. Unless 

 they are, some one will be almost sure to for- 

 get and leave one of them open. If the doors 

 are not self-closing, then all the honey that 

 is stored in the building should be put into 

 hives, shipping-cases, cans, barrels, or any 

 receptacle where bees can be kept from help- 

 ing themselves; then if perchance the door 

 is left open no harm will be done. 



ROBBING OF NUCLEI OK AVEAK COLONIES. 



There is another kind of robbing that 

 is much more common, and which is apt to 

 perplex the beginner more than any thing 



else, and that is the onslaughts that are oft- 

 en made on weak colonies or those that are 

 disinclined to make a defense. Nuclei with 

 large entrances are especially subject to the 

 attacks of bees from strong stocks, and will 

 very often be cleaned out entirely before 

 the apiarist discovers the mischief. By that 

 time the whole apiary will be in a perfect 

 uproar : and as soon as the supply of honey 

 has been exhausted in the one nucleus 

 the robl)ers will hover around all other en- 

 trances, and on finding one poorly defended 

 they will get in more bad work later. Dur- 

 ing a dearth of honey there are always some 

 bees that make a business of smelling around , 



PREVEVTING ROBBING 



BY COVERING 

 WET HAY. 



THE ENTRANCE WITH 



and it is a wise precaution always to have 

 the entrances of nuclei contracted down to 

 a width where only one or two bees can pass 

 at a time. We will suppose that a hive has 

 been overpowered, and that its own bees are 

 making no defense, realizing, probably, that 

 resistance is useless. If any thing is to be 

 done to save the colony it must be done 

 quickly. One way is to grasp up a handful 

 of long grass, strew it closely around the en- 

 trance, and then spray or sprinkle a dipper- 

 ful of water on it, and scatter more wet grass 

 over the entrance. A very little carbolic acid 

 added to the water makes the spray more 

 offensive to robbers. The invaders will not, 

 as a rule, crawl through wet grass to get into 

 the hive, while on the otlier hand those that 

 have already entered the hive will get out 

 and return to their homes. In the mean 

 time the regular inmates of the hive, as 

 soon as they are given a little assistance, 

 will begin to set up a defense. The grass 



