218 FIFTY YEARS AMONG THE BEES 



out freely at the top, but the bees that try to get in at- 

 tempt to make the entrance farther down. Once in a 

 great while there will gather a bunch of the outgoing 

 bees at the top so as to clog the exit, and then the rob- 

 bers will settle on this bunch of bees and work their way 

 in, but a little smoke will scatter the bunch of bees. 



But bees are persevering creatures, and are not 

 likely to stay scattered. In that case it is a good thing to 

 put two escapes over the pile, a larger one over a smaller 

 one. The piece of wire cloth used in making some of 

 mine is 22x9^ inches, and in others it is 14x6. The 

 smaller ones seem to work just as well as the larger, and 

 it is a convenience to have the two sizes when a case such 

 as I have mentioned occurs. But it does not often occur. 



''once a thief" not "always a thief.'" 



For many years I believed what perhaps is generally 

 believed, that the saying, "Once a thief, always a thief," 

 was true of any bee ever guilty of robbing. There is, no 

 doubt, some ground for such belief, for a bee that has 

 spent to-day robbing from a certain hive will very likely 

 start in on the same business to-morrow, if any more 

 plunder is to be had in the same place ; but it is not true 

 that a bee that has been engaged in one robbing scrape 

 will never after return to honest labor. 



Indeed, so far as the bee is concerned, getting honey 

 out of another hive probably seems just as honest work 

 as to gather nectar from the flowers. And the more 

 active a bee is when engaged in the field, the more active 

 might we expect to find it in trying to rob when there is 

 nothing more to be had in the field. 



Many a hive is robbed out in spring, and many a bee 

 is engaged in the robbing ; yet the first day in which an 

 abundance of stores can be had in the field, every bee 

 of sufficient age gleefully joins in the quest abroad, and 

 the fact that honey may be exposed with little danger 

 shows that the bees that were formerly so intent upon 

 robbing are now afield with the others. 



