T8T9 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



IT 



be tried. As a rule, any fair colony will 

 have sentinels posted to guard the entrance, 

 as soon as there is a need of any such pre- 

 cautions. The bee that presumes to think 

 he may enter for plunder will be led off by 

 "the ear," if I may so express it, and this 

 will be repeated, until he learns that there is 

 no chance for speculation 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 this propensity. 

 An apiary, like a community, may getsode- | 

 moralized, that thieving becomes a univer- 

 sal mania. "A stitch in time will save 1 ' 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 to defend 

 them properly, from either moths or robbers. 

 A colony without either queen or brood is 

 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 their stores than the 

 common bees. A dozen Italians will often 

 defend a hive better than a whole swarm of 

 black bees. 



COLONIES THAT WILL MAKE NO DEFENSE. 



Although this is contrary to the rule when 

 the queen and number of bees are all right, 

 yet such cases do sometimes come up. I 

 have found that colonies which have been 

 wintered in-doors are most liable to get into 

 that peculiar state, where they will allow r 

 bees from other colonies to come in and help 

 themselves without molestation, yet it is not 

 always the case. When they cannot be 

 stirred up so as to show a particle of spunk 

 or resentment, the temptation is sometimes 

 very strong to say, "It is good enough for 

 them; they ought to starve." This might 

 be gratifying to one's feelings for the time, 

 but on the whole, it would not pay. I have 

 cured them of it, in various ways; some- 

 times by giving them some good lighting 

 bees from another hive, and sometimes they 

 got over it themselves after being shut up a 

 while. I have tried scenting the robbers 

 with some strong odor, like camphor or pep- 

 permint. Do this just at night, and by the 

 next morning, the bees from each colouy 

 have an odor so distinct, that the sentinels 

 have no trouble in telling their own bees 



from the others. This has seemed to an- 

 swer, but as they might have been all right 

 anyway, I am not quite certain that chang- 

 ing the scent was the cause of the cure. 

 Contracting the entrance and closing all 

 cracks and crevices are always very import- 

 ant in stopping robbers. 



HOW TO STOP ROBBERS. 



It depends a great deal on what particular 

 stage of proceedings they have reached. If 

 they are fighting briskly, and stinging one 

 occasionally, they will usually take care of 

 themselves, if there are plenty of bees in- 

 side, and their entrance is contracted. I 

 have known the robbers to get up so early 

 on a cool morning that th? regular inmates 

 were not stirring, and before they were 

 roused, and could put a stop to it, the rob- 

 bers had quite a lively "trade" started. 

 This is a bad fashion for an apiary to learn, 

 but it will usually cure itself, if the colonies 

 are all strong. If the bees are going in and 

 out very rapidly, and running over the sen- 

 tinels in a way indicating that they are over- 

 powered, you must shut up the hive at once. 

 Now be sure you shut it up so it will stay. 

 Putting blocks before the entrance is of but 

 little use, for the united strength of the rob- 

 bers will move quite a heavy weight, slid- 

 ing the hive back, as w r e do the Simplicity, 

 is about the safest way whieh I know, of 

 closing the entrance just as you want it, 

 and having it stay. Now be -sure you re- 

 member the caution I am going to give you 

 in regard to this. Should the hive be stand- 

 ing in the sun, during a very hot day. and 

 be full of bees, they would be very likely to 

 smother, without a good deal of air. 



There are several ways of preventing bees 

 from smothering, when the hive is closed, 

 and a very common one is to give them air, 

 by means of an opening closed with wire 

 cloth. Unless this is quite large, they will 

 often pack so densely over it, as to exclude 

 every particle of air. and thus defeat its pur- 

 pose. If an upper story can be put on, and 

 tins covered witli wire cloth, it will do very 

 well, but even then the robbers inside make 

 such a fuss as to call the robbers outside to 

 them, and keep up a disturbance in the api- 

 ary all day. But a still worse objection is 

 that the robbers will sometimes make an ar- 

 rangement with those inside, by which they 

 will pass the honey out, and thus clean out 

 the hive, in time, as effectually as if they 

 were allowed admittance. Our neighbor, 

 Shaw, used a double wire cloth, with a half 

 inch space between the sheets, for his small 

 nucleus hives, just to prevent this kind of 



