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170 be found open hives ready for robbing; such bees will follow the operator from hive to hive, taking their tithe from the helpless colonies. For such robbers as these a way to appease them is a device for letting them rob where they can do little damage. Unsalable comb partly filled is put in hives or supers piled up. These are ventilated by having a wire screen above, the cover lifted, and the entrance contracted so that only one bee can pass in and out at a time. This keeps the robbers busy and happy and out of the way, and the process is called "slow robbing."

Some apiarists remove the robbed colony to a cellar for a day or two until it can recover its communal courage.

BORROWING

When a colony is queenless, or for some reason has no brood, it often allows the robbers to come and go at will, as if it had found life worthless anyhow, and that there was no use in struggling. It seems possessed of the sort of pessimism which leads to stoic recklessness. This can usually be stopped by giving the plundered colony a queen and brood; as soon as the bees find they have something worth while to live for and fight for they are mightily heartened and offer a brave defence.

WHAT BECOMES OF THE ROBBED COLONY

Some of the bees are adaptable, and when they lose courage in defending their own stores they turn about and help carry these stores to the hive of