261 
TIIK HIVE AND HONEY-BEE. 
until they have tested the strength of every hive. Even 
if all the colonies are able to defend themselves, many 
bees will be lost in these encounters, and much time 
wasted ; for bees, whether engaged in robbing, or battling 
against the robbery of others, lose both the disposition 
and the ability to engage in useful labors.* 
By keeping the movable entrance-blocks of my hives 
very close together, when a colony is feeble, if thieves try 
to slip in, they are almost sure to be overhauled and put 
to death ; and if robbers are bold enough to attempt to 
force an entrance, as the bottom-board slants forward, 
it gives the occupants of the hive a decided advantage. 
If any succeed in entering, they find hundreds standing 
in battle-array, and fare as badly as a forlorn hope that 
has stormed the walls of a beleaguered fortress, only to 
perish among thousands of enraged enemies. 
By putting these blocks before the entrance of a hive 
which has ceased to offer any effectual resistance, the 
dispirited colony will often recover heart, and drive off 
their assailants. 
When bees are actively engaged in robbing, they sally 
out with the first peep of light, and often continue their 
depredations until it is so late that they cannot find the 
entrance to their hive. When robbing has become a 
habit, they are sometimes so infatuated with it as to 
neglect their own brood ! 
The cloud of robbers arriving and departing need 
♦ If the Apiarian would guard his bees against dishonest courses, he must be 
exceedingly careful, in his various operations, not to leave any combs where 
strange bees can find them (see note, p. 172); for, after once getting a taste of 
stolen honey, they will hover round him as soon as they seo him operating on a 
hive, nil ready to pounco upon it and snatch what they can of its exposed 
treasures. 
Some bee-keepers question whether a bee that once learns to steal over returns 
to honest courses. I have known the value of an Apiary to bo 60 seriously im- 
paired by the bees beginning early in the season to rob each othor, that the owner 
was often tempted to wish that ho had never seen a bee. 
