ROBBING. 263 



his spoils from their deep recesses ; they, therefore, bite 

 and tease him, after their most approved fashion, all the 

 tune singing in his ears, " Your honey or your life," until 

 he empties his capacious receptacle, when they release 

 him and lick up his sweets. 



Bees sometimes carry on their depredations upon a 

 more imposing scale. Having ascertained the weakness 

 of some neighboring colony, they sally out by thousands, 

 eager to engage in a pitched battle. A furious onset is 

 made, and the ground in front of the assaulted hive is 

 soon covered with the bodies of innumerable victims. 

 Sometimes the baffled invaders are, compeUed to sound a 

 retreat ; too often, however, as in human contests right 

 proving but a feeble barrier against superior might the 

 citadel is stormed, and the work of rapine forthwith 

 begins. And yet, after all, matters are not so bad as 

 at first they seemed to be, for often the conquered bees, 

 giving up the unequal struggle, assist the victors in plunder- 

 ing their own hive, and are rewarded by being incorpo- 

 rated into the triumphant nation. The poor mother, 

 however, remains in her pillaged hive, some few of her 

 children faithful to the last staying with her to perish 

 by her side amid the ruins of their once happy home.* 



If the bee-keeper would not haver his bees so demoral- 

 ized that their value will be seriously diminished, he will 

 be exceedingly careful (p. 199) to prevent them from 

 robbing each other. If the bees of a strong stock once 

 get a taste of forbidden sweets, they will seldom stop 



* "Bees, like men, have their different dispositions, so that even their loyalty 

 will sometimes fail them. An instance not long ago came to onr knowledge, which 

 probably few bee-keepers will credit. It is that of a hive which, having early 

 exhausted its store, was found, on being examined one morning, to be utterly 

 deserted. The comb was empty, and the only symptom of life was the poor queen 

 herself, ' unfriended, melancholy, slow,' crawling over the honeyless cells, a sad 

 spectacle of the fall of bee-greatness. Marius among the ruins of Carthage Napo- 

 leon at Fontainebleau was nothing to this." London Quarterly Review. 



