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.
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.
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. We could never bring ourselves to a frame of mind to permit this calmly, though it seems like sensible advice. Robbing makes us so indignant that we refuse to allow the spoils to the victor.
Bees are certainly very clever, and they are able to learn. The old and successful robber soon reasons it out that where the bee-keeper with a smoker belches forth annoying fumes, there are to
