362 ROBBING AND HOW PREVENTED. 
“In Germany, when colonies in common hives are being rob- 
bed, they are often removed to a distant location, or put in a 
dark cellar. A hive, similar in appearance, is placed on their 
stand, and leaves of wormwood and the expressed juice of the 
plant are put on the bottom-board. Bees have such an anti- 
pathy to the odor of this plant, that the robbers speedily forsake 
the place, and the assailed colony may then be brought back. 
“The Rev. Mr. Kleine says, that robbers may be repelled by 
imparting to the hive some intensely powerful and unaccus- 
tomed odor. He effects this the most readily by placing in it, in 
the evening, a small portion of musk, and on the following morn- 
ing the bees, if they have a healthy queen, will boldly meet 
their assailants. These are nonplussed by the unwonted odor, 
and, if any of them enter the hive and carry off some of the 
coveted booty, on their return home, having a strange smell, 
they will be killed by their own household. The robbing is 
thus soon brought to a close.”—S. WaGNER. 
It will often be found that a hive which is overpowered 
by robbers has no queen, or one that is diseased. 
669. One of the best methods which we have found to 
stop the robbing of one hive by another, when the robbed 
colony is worth saving, is to exchange them; 7. e. to place 
the robbed colony-on the stand of the robbing colony, and 
vice versa. The robbing colony can usually be found by 
sprinkling the returning bees with flour, as they come out 
of the robbed hive, and watching the direction which they 
take. It can also often be detected by the activity of 
its bees, if the neighboring hives are idle, especially 
after sunset. 
This method, however, cannot be practiced when the 
robbing and the robbed colonies do not belong to the same 
person; or when the robbing is carried on by many hives 
at one time, although, in the latter case, the exchange of 
stands between the strongest of the robbing hives and the 
weak robbed colony, in the evening, and the reducing of the 
entrances of both, usually has a good result. The old 
robber bees, bewildered by this exchange, make their home 
in the robbed colony, since they find it on the stand where 
