70 ROBBING. 
begin to collect on the front of his hive, seeking to gain 
access. He waits until a quart or more have collected, 
and then he takes two or three quarts of boiling water, 
and dashes it upon them. This he continues through 
that day, and the next, at intervals, as often as there 
are any bees collected on the front of his hive. During 
this time he has killed more than a half bushel of bees. 
The third day he opens his hive, but to his great sur- 
prise, no bees appear, and on examination he finds the 
bees all dead. They had suffocated. Want of air, and 
the boiling water on the hive, had destroyed them. And 
to crown all, and to make his loss still more severe, he 
found it was his bees that were engaged in plundering 
his stock, and his neighbor’s bees had nothing to do with 
it. The vast number of bees slaughtered with the hot 
water, so reduced in numbers several of his stocks, that 
they never recovered, but fell prey to the moth-miller 
that season. And that was the way he “fixed ’em.” 
There are so many whims and false notions about bees, 
that great care should be exercised in adopting plans 
recommended by inexperienced bee keepers, or that 
class who claim to know everything about bees, yet by 
their practice show that they know very little. 
There is one other plan, aside from contracting the 
entrance, which will prove successful, but which is a 
little more trouble to apply. If you find a stock is being 
robbed, look them over, and be sure that they have a 
fertile, healthy queen. If the queen is found to be all 
right, but with few bees, take from this hive two comb 
