BEE-spoke-data/bees-v0 huggingface dataset:
It often happens that a colony will be nearly conquered by robbers, and it may be a fairly good-sized one too. The thing to do then is to take it off its stand and put a robber-trap on its stand, when, presto! the thieves will be imprisoned. In the meantime the attacked colony is taken down cellular where a window has been left open. The unranders that don't belong there will pass outward through the window, which then should be closed. In very short order the robber-trap on the stand of the hive that was being robbed will have collected all the robbers. When every thing becomes quiet in the yard, put the trapped bees down eellar and keep them there for some days as already directed. If confined more than two days they will, of course, have to be fed.
The robbed colony, after its despoilers are caught, may now be put back on its stand, when the entrance should be contracted to about the space that one bee can pass at a time. The bees in the trap down eellar can not of course molest it; and, during the time that they are held in confinement, it will have recovered itself, and with its contracted entrance will be able to put up a very stiff defense in case another onslaught is made.
It often happens that one or two colonies will do the greater part of the robbing in an ajary. If that is the case, trap them all and then carry them to an outward or location a mile or more from their own yard or the scenes of their recent pow-wows, where they would be only a constant menace and annoyance unless removed. If they give trouble at the outward,trap then again, and then fumigate them to death by putting sulphur in the smoker. Better by far that they be put out of the way; for having learned bad trieks they are of no further use in the yard.
poling bee-tent.
One of the great conveniences in a well-regulated apiary is some sort of bee-tent or large cage covered with mosquito-netting which one can put over himself and hive too while he is making the necessary examination. It should be quite light so that it may be easily handled ; should be at least six feet high inside, and long enough and wide enough to take in the hive and the bee-keeper comfortably while he is working. In our apiary we use two forms of tent--one a regular square house made of wire cloth, and another one which can be folded as shown in the illustration, when not in use. With either one of these, preferably the former, one can, during the robbing season, even when bees are aeting their very nearest, perform all the necessary work about the hive, such as cutting out queen-cells, introducing, etc., without a robber being able to get at the combs. Of course, the bees in the hive will fly out, bump their heads against the mosquito-netting, and finally reach the roof of the tent; but as soon as they find themselves caged they immediately try to get out through a hole in the top, where they can very soon make their escape,
## 6. How to make
Take four basswood sticks, about \(\mathbb{S}\) feet long, and fasten them together like letter X's, with a good strong screw where they cross. A piece of good strong tard twine, or small rope, makes the ridge-pole, as seen in the engraving, and this same twine unites the sticks at their tops. The mosquito-bar is sewed into a sort of bag, having the same strong twine all round its lower edges, and down each of the four corners. At these corners are also sewed metal rings, and these rings, when pulled down strongly, will loop over screw-
heads, near the lower ends of the four sticks. When thus looped over, the sticks are bent, or bowed, so as to give room in the top of the tent. The whole structure weighs less than five pounds, and yet it gives room inside for a hive, and to do all necessary work. The basswood sticks are \(1 imes\mathbb{1}\) at the lower end, and tapered to \(1 imes\mathbb{1}\) at their upper end, with the corners taken off, to make them as light as possible.
In the small cut above at \(\Lambda\) is shown the way the ring is looped over the screw-heads, and just below is seen the end of a \(2\mathbb{1}\)-inch wire nail, bent so when turned with the point downward it can be used as an anchor to keep the tent from blowing over. If the sticks are spread a little when the anchors are pushed into the ground, the tent stands very securely.
working with ideas by lampligit when robbeirs are troubles done during the day.
We have before mentioned our troubles in trying to people the house-apiary in the full.
Queens having been already hatched in the lamp nursery, would all be lost unless the colonies were divided at once, so as to make use of them. The surplus combs for making these late swarms were in the upper stories, and the robbers knew it; for no sooner was a cap raised thus they were on hand; and before we could get the broad-combs to go with them (required because the bees would not adhere even to their own combs, unless some of them contained unsealed brood), a smart traffic would be under way. It came night, and hives and queens were in all sorts of bad shapes. We were glad to have night come.
We assume you, for we longed for the time when the robbers would be compelled, by the gathering darkness, to go home. Many of you have doubtless had cause to repeat trying to work with bees when it began to grow dark, but we somehow got the idea that, with some good lamps having nice shades on them, we could do work in the evening. We went at once, took a lamp, and walked around the apiary viewing the minutes of different hives clustered out at the entrances, humming merrify, we presume in remembrance of the rich loads they had but in hour before snatched from us. Scarely a bee took wing, and we then ventured to open a hive. With the lamp on one of the posts of the trellis, we found we could handle the bees almost as well as in daylight, and, to our intense relief, not a bee would leave its hive, no matter how many combs were held temptingly under their very noses. We went to work, divided colonies, caught queens, and even handled vicious hybrids with fewer stings than we could possibly have avoided in the daytime.* This experience of working by lamplight was at a time when an A B C scholar did not know how to control, or, better, prevent, robbing in the _day time_. But prevention is better than cure. Keep the entrances of weak colonies and nuclei contracted, and keep all sweets in a closed room or sealed cans where the bees can't get a taste, and you will have no trouble. But if you _must_ trying to rear queens the results will be discouraging. Bees get cross, refuse to start cells, or, if built out, tear them down, and kill off drones, and destroy drone brood. The fact that there is no robbing when honey is coming in suggests the remedy; viz., feed _outdoors_ a thin syrup of the consistency of raw nectar, half granulated sugar and half water, made as directed under Feeding, which see. This should be put into a 60-pound square honey-can with holes punched in the top, as described under subtitle of Outdoor Feeding, in Feeding and Feeders, which see. This feeder should be stationed about a hundred yards from the apiary, and filled as often as emptied. While this feeding is going on the conditions are much like those of a natural honey-flow. The robbers are all busy around the outdoor feeder. Broad-rearing commences, cells are started and built out, drones even permitted to remain, and queen-rearing operations can continue just about as in a honey-flow. Where other bees are near, usually some arrangement can be made with their owner whereby he will pay his part of the expense. If no satisfactory agreement can be arrived at, of course the colonies will have to be fed individually, as directed under Feeding.
Footnote *: Since the above was written we have found that a good lantern is preferable to a lamp. The latter is apt to be affected by light tweezers, and is often blowout out. The former, while not open to this objection, will receive rognber handling. During the season of 1866 we used the lantern in the apiary with entire succes8.
When honey is coming in fast or even slowly, of course there is no robbing; but as the nectar supply stops, bees begin to try around to find what they can steal. At such times, when hives are opened for examination robbers will be about; and if the combs are exposed very much by such handling they will pounce upon the hive and combs in great numbers, and then attack the entrance after the hive is closed up. If one is trying to rear queens the results will be discouraging. Bees get cross, refuse to start cells, or, if built out, tear them down, and kill off drones, and destroy drone brood. The fact that there is no robbing when honey is coming in suggests the remedy; viz., feed _outdoors_ a thin syrup of the consistency of raw nectar, half granulated sugar and half water, made as directed under Feeding, which see. This should be put into a 60-pound square honey-can with holes punched in the top, as described under subtitle of Outdoor Feeding, in Feeding and Feeders, which see. This feeder should be stationed about a hundred yards from the apiary, and filled as often as emptied. While this feeding is going on the conditions are much like those of a natural honey-flow. The robbers are all busy around the outdoor feeder. Broad-rearing commences, cells are started and built out, drones even permitted to remain, and queen-rearing operations can continue just about as in a honey-flow. Where other bees are near, usually some arrangement can be made with their owner rearing operations can continue just about as in a honey-flow. Where other bees are near, usually some arrangement can be made with their owner rearing operations can continue just about as in a honey-flow. Where other bees are near, usually some arrangement can be made with their owner rearing operations can continue just about as in a honey-flow. Where other bees are near, usually some arrangement can be made with their owner rearing operations can continue just about as in a honey-flow. Where other bees are near, usually some arrangement can be made with their owner rearing operations can continue just about as in a honey-flow. Where other bees are near, usually some arrangement can be made with their owner rearing operations can continue just about as in a honey-flow. Where other bees are near, usually some arrangement can be made with their owner rearing operations can continue just about as in a honey-flow. Where other bees are near, usually some arrangement can be made with their owner rearing operations can continue just about as in a honey-flow. Where other bees are near, usually some arrangement can be made with their owner rearing operations can continue just about as in a honey-flow. Where other bees are near, usually some arrangement can be made with their owner rearing operations, and can be made with their owner rearing operations. If no satisfactory agreement can be arrived at, of course the colonies will have to be fed individually, as directed under Feeding.
caution about outdoor feeding. Joni't use honey for this purpose unless it is diluted with water to about the consistency of nectar from the flowers; and even then it is safer to use sugar, as it is not so apt to excite the bees. Once feeding is begun it should be kept up either till the colonies are supplied with needed stores or work about the colonies is finished. To feed a little one day, then skip the next, is apt to make the bees on the off days' bowl around among your neighbors and into their kitchens, greatly to the annoyance of the occupants. How to feed out unfinished sections or wet extracting-combs. While these _can_ be scattered out in the open, it is quite sure to result in fearful rob bing and stinging after the supply is exhausted. To forestall this, put the combs and sections in hives or supers, one tiered above another on a regular bottom-board, and then contract the entrance so that _not more than one or two bees can pass at a time_. To make it wider results in a scramble, and robbing of weak colonies in the yard. The top of the tier of hives or supers should, of course, be covered. While a regular hive-cover _can_ be used, a wire-cloth screen is much to be preferred, to prevent suffocation. But it must be provided with a bee-escape; otherwise nearly all the visiting bees will perish, vainly trying to force an exit through the wire screen.
These tiered-up hives with small entrances are much used to clean up scraps of honey, extracting-combs, and to empty out partly finished sections -- see Comb Honey. This slow robbing also has a tendency to draw off robbers from the nuclei and weak colonies and therefore serves a double purpose.
what happens if robbing is not stopped.
When robbing is under genuine headway, the honey of a strong colony will disappear in from 2 to 12 hours; the bees will then starve in the hive, or go home with the plilagers, or scatter about and die. This is not all: when the passion is fully aroused they will not hesitate to attack the strongest stocks, and you will find your bees stung to death in heaps before the entrances. This may put a stop to it, in time, but we have seen them push ahead until every hive of the apiary was in an uproar, and it seemed as if every bee had certainly gone crazy. At such times the robbers will attack passers-by in the streets, and even venture an attack on cats, dogs, aye, and hens and turkeys too. Like the American Indians when infuriated at the sight of blood, every bee seems to have a demomical delight in selling its life while inflicting all the torments it possibly can, feeling sad only because it can not do any more mischief.
The worst robbing time seems to be after basswood is over, when bees become especially erway, if they get even a smell of this aromatic honey left carelessly about the hives. One who has never seen such a state of affairs can have but little idea of the furious way they sting every thing and everybody. The remedy is to get a good smoker and put in enough chips or planer shavings to insure dens; smoke; then, using one hand to work the smoker bellows; with the other, proceed to close every hive that shows any symptoms of being robbed. Shut up every bit of honey where not a bee can get at it, and do your work well; for at such times they will wedge into and get through cracks that would make one think _inch boards_ were hardly protection enough. Just before dark let all the robbers go home, and be up blemes next morning to see that all entrances are close and small, and that all the hives are bee-tight. An experienced hand will restore peace and quietness in a very short time, to such a denormalized apiary. Black bees are much worse than Italians, for the latter will usually hold their stores against any number of assailants; good, strong, well-made hives, filled with Italians, with plenty of brood in each, will be in little danger of any such "raids," although we have seen the wounded and slain piled up in heaps before robbers would desist and give up trying to force an entrance. See Anger of Bees.
Bollowing.
Before closing this subject of robbing there are a few more points to be mentioned: There is a kind of pillaging called borrowing, where the bees from one hive will go quietly into another, and carry away its stores as fast as gathered; but this usually happens where the robbed stock is queenless, or has an unfertile queen. As soon as they have eggs and brood, they begin to realize what the end of such work will be. This state of affairs seldom goes on long; for it either results in downright robbing, or the bees themselves put a stop to it.
_Caution to Beginners.--_The first year we kept bees there was constant fear that they would get to robbing, as we had read so much about in the books. One afternoon in May we saw a large number of bees passing rapidly out and in a particular hive, and the more they were examined the more we were persuaded that they were being robbed. We contracted the entrance, but it seemed to make little difference. We finally closed it almost entirely, compelling the bees to squeeze out and in, in a way that must have been quite uncomfortable, at least. After awhile they calmed down, and we had only the ordinary number of bees going out and in. "There," thought we, " had we not read the books and known how,we might have lost our bees," and we undoubtedly felt very wise if we did not look so. On turning our head,bold, the robbers were at another colony, and they had to be put through the same program; then another and another; until we concluded a host of robbers had come from somewhere, and made a raid on the apiary, and that, had we not been on hand, the whole of them would have been ruined. We had got very nervous and fidgetty, and, when we found the whole performance repeated the next day, we began to think bee culture a very trying pursuit. Well, in due course of time we figured out that there was no robbing at all, but that it was just the young bees taking their afternoon playspell.
**ROCKY - MOUNTAIN BEE - PLANT** (_Cleome integrifolia_). This is a beautiful plant for the flower - garden, to say nothing of the honey it produces. It grows from two to three feet in height, and bears large clusters of bright pink flowers, as shown in the cut.
A near relative of the Spider-plant, it grows naturally on the Rocky Mountains and in Colorado, where it is said to furnish large quantities of honey. Although it succeeds easily under cultivation we can not learn that it has ever been a pecuniary success in our locality. With this, as well as all other plants, it must be borne in mind that a fair test would require acres instead of little patches in the garden.
The engraving was copied from a larger-sized picture, in Prof. Cook's " Manual of the Apiary." During the season of 1879 we had a number of the plants growing in our honey-garden. It was, however, so much inferior in looks, as well as in the amount of honey produced, to the spider-plant, that we did not take the pains to save any of the seed. The two plants very much resemble each other, but the latter is a much stronger and finer-looking plant, and has a rank luxvariance of growth that the Rocky-Mountain bee-plant heka.
The Michigan Agricultural College experimented, in 1891, with several acres of the plant, for the sole purpose of testiug its honey-producing qualities. They found it exceedingly difficult, however, to get a good stand of plants. In fact, we do not know how S.S2.(_Saltriu_)--a general name for white sage, black sage, and button sage, in California. These honey-bearing plants also belong to the _Lelbiotte_, or unit family. The word "'labiate" means lip-shaped; and on looking closely you will see that plants belonging to this family have blossoms with a sort of lip on one side, something like the nose to a pitcher. Many of this family, such as Catnip, Motherwort, Figwort, Gill-over-tie-ground, have already been mentioned as honey - plants, and the number might be extended almost indefinitely. The sage we have particularly to do with is the white mountain sage of California; and we do not know that it would be far out of the way to call this one of the most important honey-plants in the world. The crops of honey seemed from it within the past 25 years have been so immense that fine sage honey is now offered for sale in almost all the principal cities of the world, and a nice sample of well -ripened California honey, whether comb or extracted, is enough to call forth explanations of surprise and delight \(l\) from any one who thinks enough of soil, thing good to eat, and pleasant to the taste, to commit himself so far. We well reme!
sage honey. Mr. Langstroth was visiting us at the time, and his exclamations were much like our own, only that he declared it was almost identical in flavor with the famed honey of Hymettus, of which he had received a sample some years before. Well, this honey of Hymettus,which has been celebrated both in poetry and prose for ages past, is gathered from mountain thyne, and the botany tells us that thyne and sage not only belong to the same family, but are closely related. Therefore it is nothing strange if Mr. Langstroth was right in declaring our California honey to be almost if not quite identical in flavor with the honey of Hymettus. The California sages grow along the sides of the mountains, and blosson successively as the season advances; that is, the bees first commence work on them in the valleys, and then gradually fly higher up, as the blossoms open on the mountain-side, giving them a much longer season than we have in regions not mountainous.
The late John H. Martin, who was then traveling in California, had this to say of the mountain sages. The manner in which the bee has learned how to open the trapdoor is particularly interesting.
The first sage to come into blosson is that variously called black sage, button sage, and bolded sage. Upon these buttons, or bols, the little flower-tube appears, and is much like the hovertue in the red-cover blosson. Flovers develop from the outer edge of the button for several weeks. The bush is about five feet in height, bearing a large number of stalks, with several buttons to the stalk, the largest one being a little over an inch in diameter, and diminishing in size toward the tip of the stalk. A tiny drop of nectar can be squeezed from the little tube, just as we can squeeze it from the tube of red clover. When the flowering season is past, the buttons turn nearly black in hue, and cling to the bush until the next season.
In habit and appearance the white sage is entirely different. The woody portion and the leaves are nearly white, which gives it its name. The flowering stalk makes a rapid growth of several feet in one season, and the plant throws out a dozen or more of these stalks, all the way from three to eight feet in height. Each stalk is loaded with racenes of buds, which continue to produce flowers for several weeks.
The description of the white sage is not complete without giving the way in which the bee sips the nectar from the white-sage blosson. The opening in the corolla is nearly large enough for the bee to thrust its head into; but, as if jelons of its transect sweeps, the flower is provided with a long projecting lip that cells up not unlike a letter 8, and in such a manner as to close effectually the entrance. When I first saw a white-sage blosson, it was with much interest I speculated upon how the bee gained access to the nectar. Soon a busy worker ordered in among the flowers, and alighted upon the projecting portion of the S-shaped lip,which bent down under the weight of the bee, opening the door to its treasure-house,which the bee soon reflected of its contents. Upon the departure of the bee the door immediately closed again, to be opened and reopened by the successive foragers. When the rainfall has been light,white sage does not blown so profusely; and, furthermore, the lip of the flower is stunted and suiort that the bee can not not not not not standauding-room upon it; hence, after yvinyl strifailed to crystallize it. This is a very valuable quality, although it does not invariably remain clear.
Most of the white-sage honey, so called, comes from the black and button sages. The honey from these two is fully the equal of that from the white sage in body and color; hence the yield of all three varieties is known as white "'sage honey" in the great markets.
See head Frames. See head Frames, Self-spacing.
**SCENT OF BEEs.--** Any one who has observed bees has seen that they are guided very largely in their movements by the sense of smell. They have been known to fly a mile or more over water to reach flowers on an opposite bank toward which they could be guided only by scent.