60 
A YEAR AMONG THE BEES. 
them. Serve the opposite edge the same way, and the robber 
cloth is complete. You can take hold of the lath with one 
hand, lift the cloth from a hive or super, and, with a quick 
throw, instantly cover up again your hive or super perfectly 
bee-tight. The advantage of being able to handle it so 
quickly and with but one hand, is great. During the time 
when robber bees are troublesome, I keep 6 or 6 of them con- 
stantly in use, and would not be without them, if they cost a 
dollar apiece. The cost is not over 10 cents each. 
ROBBER BEES. 
Of course it is not necessary to say how much care should 
be taken to avoid robbing at the close of the honey harvest, 
but I think many experienced bee-keepers make the mistake 
of taking away anything upon which the robbers may have 
been at work, and leaving nothing in its place. If by care- 
lessness I have left a section of honey on a hive, and find the 
robbers at work upon it, I can hardly do a worse thing than 
to take it away. If I leave it, the bees will stick to it, and 
clean it out, and for some time a number of robbers will stick 
to it after the honey is all gone, but they stick to that one 
spot, and if the empty comb is left there, they keep hunting 
it all over and over, and by and by conclude the honey is all 
used out of it and go about their business. If the section is 
taken away and nothing left in its place, they seem to think 
they have made a mistake as to the place and hunt all around 
for the missing section, until they force their way into the 
nearest hive. 
If a weak colony is attacked, I may sometimes take it away, 
but if I do, I immediately put in its place an empty hive in 
which I put some scraps of comb containing a little honey. 
They will rob this out and that will be the end of it. 
One time I found a colony at the close of the honey har- 
vest, by some means about at the point of starvation. With 
more carelessness than was excusable, I gave them, I think 
in the forenoon, two or three combs filled with sugar syrup. 
Some time after, I happened to look toward that end of the 
