480 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



Aug. 1 



Conversations with 

 Doolittle 



At Borodino 



A HARD BUT VICTORIOUS FIGHT WITH ROB- 

 BERS. 



After what you said in the last issue I thought I 

 should be able to get along without allowing my 

 bees to rob again; but in spite of all I could do they 

 got started on two colonies. Have you ever had 

 any experience with robbers besides that mention- 

 ed? 



Some years ago I had a siege of robbing 

 that was so bad that I feared the whole api- 

 ary would be ruined. It was during a hot 

 time in August, wh» n there was no nectar 

 coming in from the fields, and I could not 

 open a hive, not even one of my queen-rear- 

 ing nuclei, witliout robber-bees swooping 

 down like a swarm on to the combs. If 

 there is any thing in the business that makes 

 a man feel like giving up it is having rob- 

 bers hovering all day long about every hive 

 in the yard that they think there is a pos- 

 sible chance to get into. The heat, day aft- 

 er ilay, was intense — just the condition to 

 put all the vim possible into a robber. At 

 that time I was often sending out from 

 twenty to forty queens a day, and you can 

 imagine the situation was enough to give 

 me the blues. 



The matter of the queens was the most 

 difficult of all, for I could not lift the cover 

 from a nucleus before a host of marauders 

 were ready to pile in on to the weak little 

 colony hardly able todefend itself when not 

 disturbed. 



My wife asked me why I did not use the 

 bee-tent; so the next morning I had it all 

 ready before the sun was up; and after break- 

 fast I started to put up queens that should 

 have been sent three days before. I no 

 sooner had a nucleus open than the robbers 

 came on as before; but the tent held them 

 away from the combs till it seemed as though 

 there was a small swarm about it. However, 

 I could row go on putting uj) queens, while 

 without a tent I could not work at all ex- 

 cept before sunrise and after sunset — the 

 most unpleasant time of the whole day to 

 work with bees, especially during a honey- 

 dearth. 



I thought the tent would stop all the trou- 

 ble, for it held the robbers at bay while the 

 hive was ojien and the queen was being cag- 

 ed; but after closing the hive and removing 

 the tent, the bees from this nucleus which 

 had been ]<epi outside by the tent, flocke' 

 in at the entrance; and as the guards had 

 left their posts while I had been at work, 

 the roJl)bers, of course, went in with them. 

 A fight always ensued, which, in the case of 

 the weaker nuclei, would have resulted in 

 victory for the robbers had I not i)romi)tly 

 closed the entrances. Never before had I 

 seen robbers so determined and so cunning. 

 They would hover all day long at the en- 

 trance of a nucleus hive, five and even ten 

 at a time, and alight with fanning wings as 



tired bees do after being away a long time, 

 and in this way they would get past the 

 guard. On this occasion I saw the robbers 

 doing something that I had never seen be- 

 fore, nor have I seen it since. When some 

 of the guards caught a robber, other robbers 

 would catch hold also and tug away at the 

 legs and wings until the bee got away, 

 when they would whirl around as if looking 

 for another robber, and then run into the 

 hive. In this way they worried the guards 

 of the smaller nuclei and kept me on the 

 jump all the while. 



But finally I learned how to overcome the 

 difficulty. This is not new to the older read- 

 ers, for I have mentioned it before. By care- 

 fully watching I found that, when a robber 

 slii)ped by the tired outside guard, that rob- 

 ber would be led out by one of the inside 

 guards. This set me to thinking, the result 

 of which was a change of arrangements of 

 every nucleus and weak colony. Up to this 

 time the entrance to each hive was directly 

 in front of the comb. Now, as fast as I 

 opened a nvicleus hive I took the frame hav- 

 ing the most honey and set it clear to the 

 opposite side of the hive from the entrance; 

 then the frame having the next greatest 

 amount, a bee-space from it; and the frame 

 having the most brood in it next to that (I 

 generally use three frames to a nucleus), 

 and then put in a division-board and closed 

 the hive, leaving the entrance on one side, 

 while the nucleus of three combs was on 

 the other side. If a robber succeeded in 

 slipping by both the outside and inside 

 guards it still had to travel over a foot of 

 space all along which were scattered gviards 

 ready to seize it; and if the robber did get 

 by all these gvuirds through stratagem, it 

 first came to the division-board and then to 

 a comb of brood which is far better protect- 

 ed from beesthanany other part of the hive. 

 The result was that, although robber bees 

 still hovered around, no colonies were rob- 

 bed out, and no nuclei or weak colonies 

 since that time have ever been robbed out if 

 there were enough bees to protect the combs 

 at all. 



How to Protect Empty Combs from Moths. 



1 intend to stack up bruod-chanibers filled with 

 empty combs, six stories high, making all the 

 cracks as tight as possible, for the purpose of fumi- 

 g.iting with carbon bisulphide. Please tell me 

 about how much of the liquid I need to use at each 

 application, and how often I shall need to renew it 

 to insvire the best results. 



Paducah, Ky. VVm. Janes. 



[After fumigating. If you leave the combs stacked 

 u]) just as they are, making sure that all the joints 

 are tight, there is probably no reason why you 

 would need to repeat the work, provided that your 

 carbon bisulphide is as strong as it should be. If 

 you get It in the sealed package, and do not let It 

 lie open on the shelf for some time, one treatment, 

 we think, would be sullicient. Place about half a 

 pint of the liquid ui a very shallow dish over each 

 stack of frames, covering every thing up on top, so 

 that no air can get in. The gas is heavier than air, 

 and falls, therefore completely filling the whole tier 

 of bodies. 



To be on the safe side it might be well to make an 

 examination of one of the sets of frames after 48 

 hours, and if you see any signs of life at all in the 

 shape of moths that are not dead, repeat the fumi- 

 gation. — Ed.] 



