ROBBER BEES LAYING WORKERS. 1 1 7 
flow ceases. In any event the entrances of such hives should be con- 
tracted until but few or even no more than one bee can gain access to 
the interior at one time. Professor Cheshire has devised an excellent 
entrance block to prevent or check robbing. This is shown in fig. 70, 
and is so simple that anyone can make it. When contracted and placed 
at the hive entrance it will be seen that the robbers must make their 
way through a narrow and bent passage, something they are loath to 
attempt, especially if at the first onset they find the passage well 
guarded. 
If robbing has begun it may sometimes be stopped by throwing 
coarse grass or weeds over the entrance of the hive attacked, or by 
leaning a pane of glass against its front, the entrance being, of course, 
contracted as indicated above. These plans tend to confuse the rob- 
bers for a time, and meanwhile the rightful occupants of the hive may 
be able to organize for defense. If convenient the colony attacked 
may be moved a distance of a half mile or more and placed as far as pos- 
sible from other apiaries until it can -recuperate. Another plan in 
extreme cases is to put the colony in a dark cellar for a few days, con- 
fining the bees to the hive with wire cloth, so as to allow plenty of 
ventilation, as described under the head of < k Moving bees." When 
brought out of the cellar it is well 
to place the colony on a new stand, 
apart from the other bees, contract 
the entrance, and lean a board against 
the front Of the hive. It iS alSO Safest Fig. 76.— Cheshire anti-robbing entrance: st, 
to bring it out late in the day, even stationary piece; «. slide; P , P in orstop. (Re- 
just at dusk, so the bees will begin 
flying from it gradually and not attract the attention of robbers. It 
may be well, when removing a colony from its stand to save it from rob- 
bers, to put in its place a hive with combs containing a little honey and 
pollen. The robbers, instead of scattering and entering adjacent hives, 
will continue to visit the same stand, their numbers gradually dimin- 
ishing as the honey gives out and the pollen is sucked dry. If mean- 
while the entrances of adjoining hives have been contracted and these 
colonies are fairly strong and in normal condition, individual robbers 
will be successively repulsed as they appear. Quiet will thus be even- 
tually restored. 
LAYING WORKERS. 
Although laying workers are not strictly enemies of their kind, their 
work hastens the extinction of the colony t<> which they belong, in < ise 
the latter has become queenless and is without the means of rearing 
another queen. They cause the expenditure of t lie stores and strength 
of the colonies in a vain though well-meant endeavor to perpetuate 
their species; the eggs which laying workers deposit, and for whose 
development through the larval stage much honey ami pollen are 
