BEE-spoke-data/bees-v0 huggingface dataset:
In case the bee secures its load and makes its way out unobserved, it gets home very quickly, you may be sure, and, under the influence of this new passion for easily replenishing its hive with 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 then where to go? We wish to digress enough here to say that we do not believe in a so-called language among bees, or animals in general, further than certain simple sounds which they utter, and which we may learn to interpret almost if not quite as well as they do. When a bee comes into the hive in such unusual haste, padded out with its load in a way also rather unusual when obtained from ordinary stores, its comrades at once notice it, and, either from memory or instinct, 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 reeksless spirit that stirs these little fellows. Well, the bees, when they see a comrade return in the way mentioned, seem to know, without any verbal explanation, that the plunder 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 examine every hive in the aguary.
## intelligence of the honey-hee
One afternoon the door of the honey-house being left open, the bees were soon doing a "lund-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 hovering about the door. Toward night they gradually disappeared; and when we went down, about sundown, to try a new feeder, not a bee was near the door. We put the feeder in front of a hive where the bees were clustered out; and as soon as a few bees had got a taste, and filled themselves, 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 going 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 in-comers had found their rich loads? On finding it closed, back to the hive they came, to repeat the maneuver over and over.
As another evidence of the wonderful intelligence and almost reasoning power of the honey-bee, we will make an extract from _Gleunings in Bee Culture_. This item was written by A. I. Root.
On the 2th of September a shipment of honey came in, with two 8-pound cans so badly damaged that the contents had leaked out and run through the floor of the box car. The rulroad 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 I knew nothing of it till it was apprised something was wrong by the unusual number of bees swarming around the windows and doors of the factory. Then I made a little row in the camp. We carried a hose over to the leaky car and washed away the honey, cleaning it from the rearing, ironwork, and under side of the car until the bees were pretty well satisfied there was nothing more to get, although they were having around in great numbers. To prevent the bees from getting the honey inside the car, our boys covered the door pretty well with sawdust. About three o'clock the engine came around and pulled the car away. A little after-four, some men who were leading wheat informed us our bees were making them a great deal of trouble. I at once jumped to the conclusion that the company, instead of taking the car entirely away, as agreed, had only removed it to another location in the yard, and that the sticky car was still enticing our bees. I went over, saw the sawdust on the floor on which they were changing bags of wheat, and concluded it was the honey-car; but while I was puzzling my head to account for the fact that the Ironwork under this car showed no trace of honey or water either, a man called to me and pointed to _another_ car in still another location. Just swarming with bees around its door, inside and out. Then 1" caught on," Do you see the point, friends? There was not a particle of honey in or around either of the two cars I was looking at. After the honey-car had been pulled clear out of town, the bees, not willing to give up, proceeded to "leave 00 stone untuned," not were investigating every car having an open door that, in their judgment, _night_ be the one that had been pulled away. When they found one with sawdust spread over the floor they naturally concluded _that_ was the car, and got down on their hands and knees (figurately) searching in the sawdust for the honey. The other bees, seeing them thus employed, naturally concluded this was the place. Others, having learned that one box car contained so rich a find, concluded that a search through 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 digying in that sawdust, and be convinced there were no more honey-ears about.
Of course, bees have particular notes, as for joy, sorrow, anger, despair, etc.,which are produced by the wings, usually when dying; but we are quite sure they are unable to communicate to each other more than a single idea. In other words, they have no fateulty 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. For further information on this subject, see Swarming.
If you will turn back and read Anger of Bees, you will get a very good idea of the causes that start bees to robbing. Read, also, Bee-hunting, Feeding, etc. 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 we have tried in vain to get bees to take any notice of honey left around the apiary. At such times we can use the extractor right in the open air, close to the sides of the hives, if need be. On one occasion we remember leaving a comb of unscaled honey on the top of a hive from morning until noon, and not a bee touched it. It seems they preferred to go to the cloverfields in the regular way rather than to take several pounds from the top of a neighboring hive. We can readily suppose that they did not have to visit anything like a hundred blossoms at this time, and perhaps they seemed a load in going to not more than a half - dozen. Such a state of affairs is not very usual in our locality. We have very few d's during the season when it would be safe to use the extractor for a whole day in the open air, the bees generally learning to follow the freshly unquephed combs about, and that it is easier than going to the fields. The first indication of robbing which you will probably have will be the cool and wicked way of stinging that we have described in Anger of Bees.
After the season begins to fail, you may expect that every colony in your 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 precaution. The bee that presumes to think it may enter for plunder will be led off by " the ear," if we may so express it, and this will be repeated until it learns that there is no chance for peeulation at that house. At the close of the honey harvest we should be sure that there are no feeble hives that may be overpowered, for one such may start the fashion of robbing, and make it a much harder matter to control the propensity. An apiary, like a community, may get soder-moralized that thieving becomes a universal mania. "\(\Lambda\) stitch in time will save" a great many more than nine in this case. Be sure that euch colony has the entrance contracted, and, in fact, the space occupied by the bees also, in proportion to their numbers. Give them only so many combs as they can cover, if you wish them defended properly from either moths or robbers. Colonies without either queen or brood are not apt to fight for their stores very vigorously, so it will be well to see that they have either one or both, should there be an attack made on them. It is hardly necessary to repeat what has been said about Italians being better to defend themselves than the common bees. A few Italians will often protect the hive better than a whole swarm of black bees.
How to know robber-bees.
It sometimes puzzles beginners exceedingly to know whether the bees that come out are robbers, or ordinary inmates of the hive.
When the robber-bee approaches a hive, it has a sly, guilty look, and flies with its legs spread in a rather unusual way, as if it wanted to be ready to use its heels as well as wings if required. It will move cautiously up to the entrance, and quickly dodge back as soon as it sees a bee coming toward it. If it is promptly grabbed on attempting to go in, you need have but little fear. When a bee goes in and you can not definitely determine whether it is a robber or not, keep a close watch on all the bees coming out. This is a very sure way of telling when robbers have got a start, even at its very commencement. \(\Lambda\) bee, in going to the fields, comes out leisurely, and takes wing with but little trouble, because it has no load. Its body is also slim, for it has no honey with it. A bee that has stolen a load is generally very plump and full; and as it comes out it 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 the weight. In Bee-hunting we related how a bee, laden with thick undiluted honey, would stagger under its load before it could take wing for the final trip home. Well, the bee, when coming out of the hive with honey it has very likely just unenped, feels instinctively that it will be quite apt to tumble unless able to take wing from some elevated position, and therefore crawls up the side of the hive before launching out. When first taking wing it falls a little by the weight of its load, before its wings are fully under control, and therefore, instead of starting out as a bee ordinarily does, it takes a downward curve, coming quite near the ground before rising safely and surely. With a little practice you can tell a robber at first glance by its way of coming out of the hive, particularly by that fashion of running up the side of the hive before taking wing.
How to tell where the robbers belong.
If you are a bee-hunter you will probably line them to their hive without any trouble; but if you are not, you can easily find from which hive they come by sprinkling them with flour as they come out of the hive being robbed. Now watch the other hives, and see where you find the floured bees going in. We can generally tell in a very few minutes, by the excited actions of the robbers, already mentioned. If you find that the robbing is confined to one or two colonies, as is often the case, put them down cellar and keep them there for several days where they can not incite other colonies. Reference will be made to this further on.
How to stop robbing.
As to the best mode of procedure, a good deal will depend on circumstances. When bees in the whole apiary are robbing in a wholesale way from the honey - house, or from any place where a supply of honey or syrup is kept, the obvious remedy is to shut the door of the dwelling to cut off the supply. If the bees have entered a barrel through the bunghole, the chances are we shall find, after the head of the barrel is taken out, that there is a peek or more of bees swimming around in the honey. Ifrobbing.
robbing became very bad we would drive the bung into the barrel, and then, after the up-roar has quieted down, remove it and run the honey through a strainer from the bunghole.
Bees soon stop robbing when all sweets within their reach are removed or so protected that they can not get at them; but even then the apiary will be out of balance for the rest of the day, and more or less for two or three days following, because the bees will be trying to find where they can find more sweets.
Sometines robbing is started by some one in the neighborhood making sweet pickles, causing raw thing that causes a strong odor of sweet or sour during its preparation : then the only thing the bee -keeper can do is to have the house screened; or if the case is very bad, and the bees keep on "sticking their noses into other people's business," we would recommend smoking the nitheres with tobacco smoke. Half a dozenwhiftsof smokeshouldbe blown into each entrance, one after the other. In half an hour the dose should be repeated. This will cause the bees to quiet down until such time as the canning-work or the pickle-making is over at the house where bees are "'making themselves too familiar."
The best treatment for a general robbing throughout the apiary is prevention. The screen doors and other openings into the honey-house should be self-closing. Unless they are, some one will be almost sure to forget and leave one of them open. If the doors are not self-closing, then all the honey that is stored in the building should be put into hives, shipping-cases, cans, barrels, or any receptacle where bees can be kept from helping themselves; then if perchance the door is left open no harm will be done.
robbing of nuclei or weak colonies.
There is another kind of robbing that is much more common, and which is apt to perplex the beginner more than any thing and it is a wise precaution always to have the entrances of nuclei contracted down to a width where only one or two bees can pass at a time. We will suppose that a hive has been overpowered, and that its own bees are making no defense, realizing, probably, that resistance is useless. If any thing is to be done to save the colony it must be done quickly. One way is to grasp up a handful of long grass, strev it closely around the entrance, and then spray or sprink a diperfill of water on it, and scatter more wet grass over the entrance. A very little carboidic acid added to the water makes the spray more offensive to robbers. The invaders will not, as a rule, crawl through wet grass to get into the hive, while on the other hand those that have already entered the hive will get out and return to their homes. In the mean time the regular minutes of the hive, as soon as they are given a little assistance, will begin to set up a defense. The grass
## Robbing.
Well, we will say the colony has been almost pleaned out, night has come on, and things in the apiary have assumed their natural order. If there are not enough bees left to make up a colony or even a fair nucleus, take away all the old combs, sweep out all the dead bees, and give them a frame containing a very little honey; contract the entrance down to one bee-passage, and then watch them the next morning to see whether they will put up a defense. As a further precaution it might be well to throw a little wet grass in front of the entrance. In general, bees that are given a little rest, and a chance to recover from their demormalization, will fight very hard; and probably the second time after they have been helped a little they will be able to maintain their rights. But the robber - trap scheme described on next page is much better than the tent.
Trying to people on house - apiary in the fall, when it was first built, we had trouble with one certain colony. In fact, when robbing was going on anywhere it was sure to be these hybrids that were at the bottom of the mischief. After we had tried every plan recommended, a nd still finding these fellows would persist in pushing into every new colony we started, the idea occurred to us that, on the principle that it takes a rogue to catch a rogue, it would be well to try to see how these would repel other robbers. We simply took the greater part of the combs from the robbers, bees and all, carried them into the house-apiary, and put them in place of the colony which they had been robbing. The effect was instantaneous. Every laten robber-bee that went home with its load, on finding the queen and brood gone from the old stand at once showed the utmost concentration, while the passion for robbing was instantly changed to grief and meaning for the lost home. The weak colony which they had been robbing, and which had only a queen-cell, was carried to then, and they soon took up with it and went to work. The robbers newly domiciled in the house-apiary repelled all invaders with such energy and determination that the rest seemed to abandon the idea which they, doubtless, had previously formed; viz., that the house-apiary was a monster hive but ill garrisoned, so we had very little trouble afterward. Before we transposed them, as mentioned, we had serious thoughts of destroying their queen, simply because they were such pests; but the year afterward, this colony gave in the house-apiary over 100 lbs. of comb honey.
how to know when a hive is putting up a good defense.
The accompanying half-tone is a good illustration of how a powerful colony will de
Figure 4: A colony that is ready to meet any kind of ONsLAught from Bobbers.
Rothers had hovered around the entrance. The result was, the guards were out in good fore to repel the attack.
How do we avoid catching honest bees? Easy enough. The traps are put in operation only when the prowling thieves are around. They are constantly on the alert, skilled as they are in the art of stealing and in finding any exposed sweets; that is to say, they are ever following one about, while the honest bees are either in the field or hive.
Let us assume a case. After we have been working in the yard a few days there are a few robbers that accumulate. But we do not let them continue on with their nosing into other people's business till they make work in the yard exceedingly disagreeable, and the colonies that are being worked cross. Before they become very numerous, two or three robber-traps are put into operation; and in an hour absolute peace is restored and not a prowiler is in sight.
Fig. 2.--Outside detail of the robber-trap. A double screen is used, and honey is pointed on the inner screen. Robbers are attracted by the odor of the honey. As the y can not reach it from the outer screen they enter the hive and are trapped.
The value of the trap depends on the fact that it stops a would-be bad case of robbing _before_ it has progressed to any extent. A little syrup (and a very little) is put into one or two traps. The robbers, because hunting for sweets, are caught _long before_ any honest bees think of looking for them.
construction of robber-traps.
Let us now look over one of these traps at the Root aplaries and see how they are constructed. An ordinary hive, such as is used in the yard, two wire screens such as are employed for moving bees, a super-cover, and a wire-cloth-cone bee-escape, make up the complete outfit. (The ordinary Porter spring escapes for this purpose have not been found to be as satisfactory as the wire-cloth cones.) We open up the robber-trap hive, and just over the entrance of it we find a wire-cloth cone tacked up against the inside hive-front. This is made by cutting and folding a piece of wire cloth in the form of a triangle. The large end fits over the entrance, while the other end,gradually targeting to a small orifice (about \(\sharp\) inch square), reaches nearly to the top of the hive, or with: in an inch of the rabbet on which the frames rest; it is then secured by double-pointed tacks as shown at the top of Fig. 1. As an additional precaution we find it desirable to have a smaller wire cone of the same construction under the larger one. Where there is only one cone the bees are liable to go back out through the entrance. Other forms of cones are shown in the two lower views of Fig. 1 on previous page.
Fig. 3.--Outside detail of the robber-trap. A double screen is used, and honey is pointed on the inner screen. Robbers are attracted by the odor of the honey. As the y can not reach it from the outer screen they enter the hive and are trapped.
One of these traps is placed at a convenient location in the yard, when one of the wire screens for moving bees is laid on top. With a brush we smear a little diluted honey (honey is better than syrup) over the wire cloth at one end--the back one. This film of honey is spread over an area of about two inches wide by the width of the screen. Another screen is placed on top of this, and over the whole is placed a super-cover, as at the left in Fig. 2. Notice that this super-cover is set back about two inches, leaving a portion of the wire cloth--the part smeared with honey--exposed where the bees can get a _smell_ of it, but not touch it, because the upper screen keeps them from it. Now, a rubber-bee, if a hardened "old sinner" or a professional, when it smells honey in this way will immediately begin to "investigate." It will hover around the wire cloth (not covered by the super cover) for a minute or so, and then, like a duck to water, it will make a dart for the entrance. There are no guards there to stop it; it rushes in bellnell, crawls up through the two wire-cloth cones shown in the previous illustration, and out through the apex, when it is a prisoner. It may take a sip of the honey, and when it gets its fill it will go toward the light at the point where the super cover is slid backward. The chances are only one in a thousand that it will get back through the wire-cloth cones as mentioned, and it soon worries itself to death. Thus the trap works after it catches all the criminally inclined bees. The small amount of diluted honey on the inner wire cloth is used up, and automatically the robber-trap goes out of commission. The old sinners are all caught; and as there is no more honey to attract honest bees, none will be caught.
The question may arise right here, " Is the rubber-trap of any use to the honey-producer?" (certainly not to the same extent that it is useful in a queen-rearing yard; but during a period of extracting, there are times when it appears to us it might be used to good advantage, especially if some careless employee should happen to leave the door of the honey-house open or allow a colony to be robbed to death.
As we have before pointed out, if robbers can be caught at the very start they will be found to be mainly from one hive, and a little later from two or three. If they get well agoing they will attract other bees by their uproar; but if robber-bees be floured, and followed back to their hives, it will be seen that the great bulk of them go to only two or three hives. A yard-man has to be extremely careless to allow robbing to get started throughout the entire yard.
how the robber-trap can be made to cure the robbing nuisance.