Bee robbing

“ Every bee-keeper knows that when a hive of bees takes to robbing other hives its usefulness is ended. Robber bees, that have once learned the ease and delight of plundering the accumulated stores of other hives, will never go back to the drudgery of gathering their food from the flowers. They will go on robbing until they are destroyed in battle by hives that are able to protect themselves or until they have starved in the midst of plenty because they refused to work. ”

“ If the mischief of robbing is detected in its early stage, much may be done to stop it by narrowing the hive entrances, so that only one bee at a time can get in. This will enable the sentinels to examine each one who tries to enter, and to turn back strangers. ”

“ LOSS of stocks by robbing shows carelessness, or a lack of knowledge as to the proper care of bees. Not one strong, healthy stock of bees in a thousand will be robbed, if proper precaution is taken. During a copious yield of honey there is very little danger of robbing. When there is a slack in the yield, the bees will search about for plunder, and if a weak stock is found, they will be very likely to attack it. ”

“ Root advises working at nightfall when bees are cross or given to robbing; but most bee-keepers declare that the bees will crawl all over one at night, and are no more to be gotten rid of than a porous plaster, at which Mr. Root promptly responds, "Do not stand near the lamp."
Enterprising men exchange places of the robbers and victims, which produces a confusion that restores quiet. The robbers come back to the weak colony laden with its own stores and join it and help fight off intruders; while a strong colony of robbers is quite capable of defending itself. ”

“ It is easier to prevent robbing than to check it at once or without loss after it is well under way. Leaving honey exposed about the apiary often induces robbers to begin their work; hence extracting and similar work must be done in bee-proof rooms whenever the bees are not gathering honey freely. It may at such times be necessary to do all manipulating early in the morning, before many of the bees have begun to fly, or later in the day, after they have ceased, or even under a tent made of mosquito netting and placed temporarily over the hive to be manipulated. ”

“ Bees, when they have been stealing a sack of honey from a neighboring hive, will generally run several inches from the entrance before flying: kill some of these; if filled with honey, they are robbers; because it is very suspicious, to be filled with honey when leaving the hive; or sprinkle some flour on them as they come out, and have some one watch by the others to see if they enter. Another way is less trouble, but will take longer, before they are checked, if robbing. ”

“ Bees when plundering a stock will often keep at their work until dark, some of them being unable to find their hive by reason of the darkness. Honest workers are not found abroad at that time, and, by the way, this is a very good test of robbing. ”

“ When bees can gather no honey, Italians especially go about visiting for the purpose of plunder, and woe to the colony that is not strong enough to defend its stores. I have reduced the entrance, covered the entrance with cow-chips, wet hay, brush, and, in fact, tried all remedies that ever I saw in print or heard of, without success. While the robbers were helping themselves, the colony robbed was not discouraged, but appeared to be robbing some other, and the queen was laying eggs, to be starved as they advanced to brood; no bees appeared to be killed at the entrance, as no blacks were about ”

“ I think I can understand why they are so frequently accused of robbing bees. Many bee-keepers are wholly ignorant, most of the time, of the real condition of their stocks. Many causes independent of ants, induce a reduction of population. Suppose the bees are so reduced as to leave the combs unprotected, and the ants enter and appropriate some of the honey to themselves, and should the owner come along just then and see them engaged, "Ha! ”

“ This will allow all that belong to the hive to get in, and others to get out, and materially retard the progress of the robbers.
ROBBING USUALLY COMMENCES ON A WARM DAY.
Unless it should be cool, they will continue their operations till evening. Very often some are unable to get home in the dark, and are lost. This, by the way, is another good test of robbing. Visit the hives every warm evening. They commence depredations on the warmest days; seldom otherwise. If any are at work when honest laborers should be at home, they need attention. ”

“ Robbing is sometimes a more serious matter, although it very rarely happens that a little careful attention just at the right time on the part of the bee keeper would not avoid all serious trouble on this score. When bees find nothing to gather during weather when they can still fly out they are easily tempted to appropriate the stores of weaker colonies. Exposure of combs of honey at such times may even occasion a combined attack upon a good colony otherwise quite able to take « 46 » care of itself. ”

“ If she succeeds in carrying back to her own hive the honey thus stolen, she creates great excitement there and soon she leads back a mob to pillage; and the air is full of bees bent on wickedness. Mr. Root describes graphically the successful robber thus: "A bee that has stolen a load is generally very plump and full, and as it comes out has a hurried and guilty look; besides it is almost always wiping its mouth like a man who has just come out of a beer shop. Most of all it finds it a little difficult to take wing as bees ordinarily do because of its weight." ”

“ Robbers.—As considerable robberies frequently take place in this month among the Bees, attention is required to discover if any hives are attacked; and when it is found to be the case, it will be necessary to narrow the entrance of the hive, so that only one or two Bees at most can go in at the same time. The weak stocks, in general, are those that suffer from pillage. Robber Bees may easily be distinguished from others, for they fly rapidly round the hive, and hover before the entrance for some time before alighting ”

“ After all, bees being robbed is like being destroyed by worms; a kind of secondary matter; that is, not one strong stock in a hundred will ever be attacked and plundered on the first onset. Bees must be first tempted, and rendered furious by a weak hive; a dish of refuse honey set near them is sometimes sufficient to set them at work, also where they have been fed and not had a full supply. After they have once commenced, it takes an astonishing quantity to satiate their appetite. They seem to be perfectly intoxicated, and regardless of danger; they venture on to certain destruction! ”

“ Bees sometimes act the part of highway robbers; some half dozen or more of them, will waylay and attack a poor humble-bee which is returning with a sack full of honey to his nest, like an honest trader, jogging home with a well filled purse. They seize the poor bee, and give him at once to understand that they must have the earnings of his industry. They do not slay him. Oh no! they are much too selfish to endanger their own precious persons ”

“ It is well known that there always are a number of bees which prefer a life of robbery to the laborious life of a worker; and that both periods of scarcity and periods of an unusually rich supply of food lead to an increase of the robbing class. When our crops are in and there remains but little to gather in our meadows and fields, robbing bees become of more frequent occurrence; while, on the other side, about the sugar plantations of the West Indies and the sugar refineries of Europe, robbery, laziness, and very often drunkenness become quite usual with the bees. ”

“ The novice might conclude that a good plan would be simply to set off the super near the hive, and let the bees find their own way back to their brood and kindred. But bee-nature has to be reckoned with in this instance, and the bees, conscious that the honey is their own, are likely to uncap the cells and carry the honey into the hive; or worse still, the bees from other hives will be attracted to these open stores and will begin to rob. And in the bee courts of equity, when bees begin to rob, then the "devil is to pay." ”

“ If a robber colony has almost completed its nefarious work, some people believe that it is best to let it make a clean job, and thus become satisfied there is no more plunder to be had, else the robbers will hunt other hives for depredation. The bee memory seems to be very good, and if the robbers have not cleaned up all the honey which they remember is there, they hunt for it elsewhere. ”

“ If brush is thrown in front of the entrance, robbers are less likely to attempt entering. At all times honey which has been removed from the hives should be kept where no bees can get at it, so as not to incite robbing. ”

“ Their owners could no longer stroll about among the hives with impunity. The bees came into the cabin, attracted by one of the pails of candied honey, and would have carried every morsel of it away if they had been permitted. Robber bees were prowling about every hive, looking for a chance to steal a little sweet from some careless colony, but every entrance was alive with alert guards, and no bee was allowed to pass in without being examined and smelt all over. The robbers did get a foothold in one weak colony, however, and before the apiarists saw it, it was besieged by a cloud of bees. ”

“ ROBBING.
This is a trouble that often very greatly annoys the inexperienced. Bees only rob at such times as the general scarcity of nectar forbids honest gains. When the question comes: Famine or theft, like many another, they are not slow to choose the latter. It is often induced by working with the bees at such times, especially if honey is scattered about or left lying around the apiary. It is especially to be feared in spring, when colonies are apt to be weak in both honey and bees, and thus are unable to protect their own meager stores. ”

“ Sometimes when preserving or pickling is going on in the house the bees start to rob the kitchen; and while they may be deterred by screened windows, yet the smell of the sweets may so excite them to desires for forbidden wealth that they seem to become discontented with the grind of daily toil, and so begin robbing their neighbours. ”

“ Harvesting any crop has interesting features, but nothing has the peculiar charm of taking off [317] honey. Loosen the cover, puff in a little smoke, lift the cover, then the whole super off. Put on a new super and replace the cover. Have your bee brush ready and as you lift the fitted sections out of the super, brush the bees that cling to them down to the entrance to the hive. This is the old way and is fraught with dangers. Moreover, the bees may regard one robbery as sufficient excuse for another. Robbery is a serious matter in the apiary. ”

“ Some observers claim that she merely takes the initiative, tearing down the wall of the cell, and the bees finish by tearing it down as they would any broken comb, and destroy the inmate in the process. If, in her promenade, she discovers another full-grown queen, a contest ensues; it is a duel to the death and the weapons are stings, which are kept sacred for this special occasion. It is interesting that the queen reserves her weapon for her peers, and never attempts to sting workers, and may be handled fearlessly by the bee-keeper. ”

“ They are professional thieves. Like the bees of a correspondent of yours, they have no respect for tuum, and having no meum, they care nothing. Living at the expense of others, without consulting the convenience or goodwill of anybody, they richly deserve what their extermination will pay for—sulphur, gunpowder, and boiling water. Let every bee-master give sixpence to every boy who destroys a wasps'-nest.
The wasp builds its nest generally underground. Their cells are hexagonal. The house is built of paper, fabricated by this insect long before its manufacture was discovered by man. ”

“ Another clever trick practised in Europe is to place some disagreeable, strong-smelling substance on the bottom board of the hive that is being robbed; wormwood, musk, carbolised paper, are used for this. The odour disconcerts the robber unless she is lost to all sense of bee decency; and if she does steal honey from such a hive and returns home her doom is sealed; for although in the bee world the way of the transgressor is not always hard, the way of the citizen that smells differently from her sisters leads to her murder and sudden death. ”

“ When a glass or box of honey is taken, it- 29 - must not be left till the Bees are all out of it, for it is very likely to be attacked by robbers, and a great part of it carried away in a short time. Robbers may be known by their endeavouring to enter the glass or box, while the Bees belonging to it, being separated from their queen, fly home immediately upon leaving it. ”

“ Another method for stopping robber-bees from their plundering is to put at night into the hive attacked a small quantity of some strongly-smelling substance—a little musk, for example. The unwonted odour seems to rouse the inhabitants, and if they have a healthy queen, they will, in the morning, resolutely meet the robbers. ”

“ There would be much less fear of stings if it were always remembered that bees are never aggressive. "Defence, not defiance," is their motto. They scarcely ever attempt to sting when away from the hive, and very seldom indeed at the time of swarming, for then they are gorged with honey. When molested by angry bees, do not attempt to beat them off; the safest and best retreat is a green bush. Thrust your head into this, or, if no such refuge is near, in an emergency throw yourself on the ground, and, with face downwards, the bees will soon leave you. ”