34 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



followed: Either moving by about a foot or two each day; or con- 

 fining the bees to the hive and placing them in a cool cellar for three 

 or four days and then liberating them at night and placing some 

 obstruction, such as a bunch of grass or a bush, before the entrance. 

 This assists in making them "take their location" when starting out 

 the next day. When confined to the hives they should have wire 

 cloth over the top of the hive and over the entrance. If the weather 

 is hot, a sponge or roll of cloth saturated with water should be laid 

 on the wire. 



ROBBING. 



When working among the bees take pains not to spill any honey 

 about or leave comb containing honey where the bees can get at it. 

 Sweets so exposed may start robbing and this is particularly likely 

 to occur if little or no food is to be found in the fields. Robbing once 

 well under way is an unpleasant, even a serious matter. The easiest 

 way the writer has found to stop it has been to put an abundance 

 of thin syrup or diluted honey a few rods from the apiary and get the 

 bees started on it by walking among the hives with a comb of honey 

 until it was well covered with bees and then gently carrying it to the 

 food and leaving it, If enough food is put there to keep the bees 

 busy until dark (say two pounds for each colony), and the empty 

 receptacles left there for the bees to smell over the next day, the evil 

 is generally stopped without further trouble. But this is not a safe 

 practice if bee diseases exist in the vicinty. Reducing the size of the 

 entrance to an inch and smearing the hive front and floor near it 

 with one of the creosote compounds will usually stop trouble unless 

 it has been going too long. 



In extreme cases close the hive with wire cloth put it in_ a cool 

 cellar, supply it with food of thin sugar syrup and let it remain there 

 for four or five days and when taken out put it in a new location. 



Like many other evils it is more readily prevented than cured. 



