ROBBING 
its hive witli the coveted sweets, it rushes 
out with a vehemence never known under 
any other circumstances. Back it goes and 
repeats the operation, with several of its 
comrades at its heels. Does it tell them 
where to go? 
When a bee comes into the hive in such 
unusual haste, podded out with its load in 
a way also rather unusual when obtained 
from the flowers, its comrades at once 
notice it, and, either from memory or in¬ 
stinct they are suddenly seized with the 
same kind of passion and excitement. 
Those who have had experience at the 
gambling-table, or in wild speculations of 
other kinds, can understand the fierce and 
reckless spirit that stirs these little fellows. 
The bees, when they see a comrade return 
in the way mentioned, seem to know, with¬ 
out any verbal explanation, that the plun¬ 
der is stolen. Anxious to have “a finger 
in the pie,” they tumble out of the hive, 
and look about, and perhaps listen, too, to 
find where the spoil is to be had. If they 
have, at any former time, been robbing any 
particular hive, they will repair at once to 
that; but, if it is found well guarded, those 
used to the business will proceed to exam¬ 
ine every hive. 
< INTELLIGENCE OF THE HONEYBEE. 
The following incidents, described in 
Gleanings in Bee Culture, are worth repro¬ 
ducing here: 
“One afternoon, the door of the honev- 
house being left open, the bees were soon 
doing a ‘land-office’ business before the 
mischief was stopped by closing the door 
until they had clustered on the windows 
in the room, which were then opened, and 
the process repeated until all were out. 
All the rest of the afternoon they were hov¬ 
ering about the door. Toward night they 
gradually disappeared; and when the au¬ 
thor went down about sundown, to try a new 
feeder, not a bee was near the door. The 
feeder was placed in front of a hive where 
bees were clustered out; and as soon as a 
few bees had got a taste, and filled them¬ 
selves, they of course went into the hive to 
unload. We expected a lot to come out; as 
soon as these entered with their precious 
loads, but were much astonished to see an 
eager crowd come tumbling out as if they 
were g’oing to swarm, still more when they 
rushed right past the feeder and took 
wing for—where do you suppose? the 
honey-house door, of course. How should 
they reason otherwise, than that it had 
again been left open, and that was where 
these incomers had found their rich loads? 
On finding it closed, back to the hive they 
came to repeat the maneuvers over. 
“As another evidence of the wonderful 
intelligence and almost reasoning power of 
the honeybee, another instance will illus¬ 
trate further. 
“Some years ago in September a carload 
shipment of honey came in 60-pound cans 
so badly damaged that the contents had 
leaked out and run thru the floor of the 
box car. The railroad company had agreed 
to take the car away at half-past ten; and 
as the weather was cool the bees had not 
discovered it at that time. Unfortunately 
the company failed to move the car as 
agreed, and we knew nothing of it till we 
were apprised something was wrong by the 
unusual number of bees swarming around 
the windows and doors. We carried a hose 
over to the leaky car and washed away the 
honey, cleaning it from the gearing, iron¬ 
work, and underside of the car until the 
bees were pretty well satisfied there was 
nothing more to get, altho they were hang¬ 
ing around in great numbers. To prevent 
the bees from getting the honey inside the 
car, our boys covered the floor pretty well 
with sawdust. About three o’clock the en¬ 
gine came around and pulled the ear away. 
A little after four, some men who were 
loading wheat informed us our bees were 
making them a great deal of trouble. We 
at once jumped to the conclusion that the 
company, instead of taking the car entire¬ 
ly away, as agreed, had only removed it to 
another location in the yard, and that the 
sticky car was still enticing our bees. We 
saw the sawdust on the floor on which they 
were dumping bags of wheat, and concluded 
it was the honey-car; but, while we were 
puzzling to account for the fact that the 
ironwork unfler this car showed no trace 
of honey or water either, a man called and 
pointed to another car in still another loca¬ 
tion, just swarming with bees around its 
door, inside and out. Then we ‘caught 
on.’ There was not a particle of honey 
in or around either of the two cars we 
were looking at. After the honey-car had 
