ROBBING 
72(5 
been pulled clear out of town, the bees, not 
willing to give up, proceeded to Reave no 
stone unturned/ and were investigating 
every car having an open door that, in 
their judgment, might be the one that had 
been pulled away. When they found one 
with sawdust spread over the floor they nat¬ 
urally concluded that was the car, and got 
down on their hands and knees searching 
in the sawdust for honey. The other bees, 
seeing them thus employed, naturally con¬ 
cluded this was the place. Others, having 
learned that one box car contained so rich 
a find, concluded that a search thru all the 
cars in the yard might possibly reward 
them for their investigation; and it was 
only in the cool of the evening that they 
were willing to stop digging in that saw¬ 
dust, and be convinced there were no more 
honey-ears. 
“It may not be true that bees recognize 
colors, but they certainly do take in the 
.general make-up of objects. They are not 
only able to recognize a hive, but they 
know a box car at sight; and even if it is 
moved to a different location they take in 
its general appearance so that they know 
pretty well how to find it in case of re¬ 
moval. We are not prepared to prove that 
they read the letters ‘Big Four’ on the 
side of that car, nor that they remembered 
there was an enormous figure 4 printed in 
white on the red door of the car they 
wanted; but they came pretty close to it.” 
HOW BEES COMMUNICATE. 
Of course, bees have particular notes, as 
for joy, sorrow, anger, despair, etc., which 
are produced by the wings, usually when 
flying; but probably they are unable to 
communicate to each other more than a 
single idea. In other words, they have no 
faculty of telling their fellows.that a lot of 
honey is to be had in a feeder at the 
entrance, and that it would better be 
brought in quickly or other bees may find 
it. A bee goes out in the spring, and, by 
smelling around the buds, discovers honey 
and pollen; when it comes into the hive 
the others see it and start out to hunt up 
the source of supply in a similar way. 
WHEN BEES WILL NOT ROB. 
By turning back and reading Anger of 
Bees, one will get a very good idea of the 
causes that start bees to robbing. Read, 
also, Bee-hunting, Feeding, and Bee Be¬ 
havior. As a general thing, bees will 
never rob so long as plenty of honey is to 
be had in the fields. During a bountiful 
flow the author has tried in vain to get bees 
to take any notice of honey left around the 
apiary. At such times one can use the ex¬ 
tractor right in the open air, close to the 
sides of the hives, if need be. On one occa¬ 
sion at Medina a comb of unsealed honey 
was left on the top of a hive from morn¬ 
ing until noon, and not a bee touched it. 
It seems they preferred to go to the clo¬ 
ver fields in the regular way rather than 
to take several pounds from the top of a 
neighboring hive. It can readily be sup¬ 
posed that they did not have to visit any¬ 
thing like a hundred blossoms at this time, 
and perhaps they secured a load in going 
to not more than a dozen. 
After the season begins to fail, one must 
expect that every colony in the apiary will 
be tried. As a rule, any fair colony will 
have sentinels posted to guard the entrance 
as soon as there is any need of such pre¬ 
caution. The bee that presumes to think 
it may enter for plunder, will be led off by 
“the ear,” and this will be repeated until 
it learns that there is no chance for rob¬ 
bing at that house. At the close of the 
honey harvest precaution should be taken 
that there are no weak colonies, especially 
if they are queenless, that may be over¬ 
powered, for one such may start the fash¬ 
ion of robbing, and make it much harder to 
control. An apiary, like a community, 
may get so demoralized that thieving be¬ 
comes a universal mania. “A stitch in 
time will save” a great many more than 
nine in this case. The space occupied by 
the bees also should be in proportion to 
their numbers. Likewise the entrance should 
be in proportion to the size of the colony. 
They should have only as many combs as 
they can cover if they are to defend them¬ 
selves properly from either moths or rob¬ 
bers. Colonies without either queen or 
brood are not apt to fight for their stores 
very vigorously. It is harfily necessary to 
repeat what has been said about Italians be¬ 
ing better able to defend themselves than 
black bees. A few Italians will often pro- 
