THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



213 



carry away honey already stored, and only 

 good results will follow. Dr. Miller tells in 

 Gleanings what he has done in this line, and 

 then the editor follows with his experience. 

 As the robbing season will soon be here I 

 think it will be well to copy the whole arti- 

 cle ; 



"Fbiend RooT:^That item of your expe- 

 rience on page 782 is quitejiuteresting read- 

 ing, and I think you are somewhat at fault 

 fthat you do not give us more of the details 

 of your own apiary, particularly the bad 

 things. I am glad you have learned that, 

 under proper management, robbing is not 

 such a dangerous thing. It is hard to know 

 just what is the right ground to take in this 

 respect ; for few young bee-keepers, until 

 they have had some sad experience, have 

 any just conception of the danger connected 

 with robbing. 



I would give something to make my assis- 

 tant as afraid of robbing as I am. In former 

 years I had such a severe breaking-in that 

 the sight and sound of a single robber when 

 I am at work strikes me with alarm. But 

 Emma has not had the same experience, and 

 can work on placidly with the music of rob- 

 bers about her. I say to her, 'You must be 

 very careful or the robbers will get the start 

 of us.' 



' Oh ! I guess not. I havn't seen any yet.' 



' Why, don't yon see them there this very 

 minute, right under your very nose ?' and 

 the emphasis I give is perhaps not as pleas- 

 ant as it ought to be ; for if there is any 

 thing that demoralizes me it is to have rob- 

 bers offer their assistance when a brood- 

 chamber is open. So it is that it is con- 

 sidered not the orthodox thing to say any 

 thing in favor of allowing bees to do the 

 least thing in the line of robbing. Too often, 

 however, it is the interference of the officious 

 bee-keeper that makes most of the ti'ouble. 

 A weak, queenless colony is attacked ; and 

 the only thought in his mind is, that that 

 thing must be stopped. So the hive is taken 

 away, perhaps put in the cellar for a time, 

 and the robbers, not finding their prey in its 

 proper place, pounce upon the nearest hives, 

 which, in their turn, are taken away and 

 thus the trouble spreads. 



On another occasion a similar case oc- 

 curs, but the bee-keeper is in blissful igno- 

 rance of it : and the first thing — in fact, the 

 only thing— that he knows about it is, that 

 the hive is completely cleaned out — cleaned 

 out several days before he noticed it. In 

 that case no harm is done. The colony was 

 not worth saving, and perhaps it was a good 

 thing to have the honey transferred where it 

 would do more good. 



I very much doubt the correctness of the 

 time-honored tradition, that, if a bee once 

 does any thing in the line of robbing, she will 

 never return to honest labor afterward. You 

 know very well, that when, by reason of bad 

 weather, the honey flow suddenly stops, care 

 must be taken not to start robbing ; and if 

 by some carelessness it is started, and per- 

 haps 20 pounds of honey i-obbed, thousands 

 of bees being engaged in the plunder, if the 



next morning opens up clear and bright, 

 honey yielding freely, every bee in the api- 

 ary will seem to be hard at work. Where are 

 the thousands that yesterday were robbers ? 

 Don't tell me that none of them have gone 

 back to honest ways. 



Last spring the disastrous losses left a 

 large number of hives untenanted ; and the 

 combs, numbering more than a thousand, 

 had more or less honey in them. The fuller 

 combs were convenient to put in colonies 

 needing them, but a great many had only a 

 little honey in them. What was to be done 

 with them ? They might stand as they were, 

 but on the whole it was perhaps better that 

 they should be emptied out. Perhaps you 

 may remember that they were hung over- 

 head in the cellar. Well, the door of the cel- 

 lar was left open and the bees were invited 

 to take possession. They promptly accepted 

 the invitation. 



Now, there were two things that surprised 

 me. One was, that it took the bees so short 

 a time to clean out those combs. Another 

 was, that it took them so short a time to set- 

 tle down quietly after they got through the 

 job. For a half a day or a day after the 

 honey was gone there were more or less bees 

 searching through the cellar, and at the end 

 of that time there was nothing in the apiary 

 to indicate that anything unusual had been 

 going on. 



Another thing, if you allow a section of 

 honey to stand out, the bees will tear it all 

 to pieces. These combs I have been telling 

 about were not torn at all. Whether it was 

 that they were tougher, or that the bees had 

 so large a surface to work over, I do not 

 know ; but I am inclined to the opinion that 

 bees do not tear old combs so badly. 



When the clover harvest closed, what little 

 there was of it, all sections were taken off. 

 A goodly number of supers had so little done 

 in them that the best thing was to have the 

 bees clean them out. A somewhat large ex- 

 perience in trying to get bees to empty sec- 

 tions on or under the brood-chamber made 

 me dissatisfied with that sort of thing. So 

 one day a number, perhaps 15, of such su- 

 pers were piled up in the cellar in such a way 

 that not a very large number of bees could 

 enter at a time. They were promptly clean- 

 ed out ; and 24 hours after the work was fin- 

 ished, there was no commotion in the apiary. 

 The same thing was repeated with a larger 

 number, and with the same result. 



Now I'll tell you what I think. If you had 

 allowed the bees to work on these combs that 

 you had piled up, without restricting their 

 entrance so much, the result would have been 

 the same, provided you did not take the 

 combs away till after the bees had emptied 

 them, and had got discouraged working over 

 them. The whole matter lies just in this : 

 If bees get to robbing you must not take 

 away every thing they are working at, but 

 leave them to work on the very same spot 

 until they are satisfied that they have finish- 

 ed up the work themselves. Perhaps it may 

 do to empty out a hive they are working at, 

 providing the hive itself is left, and nothing 

 about its appearance changed ; but I think I 

 would rather leave some comb in the hive for 



