Ants and wasps.—Some of the larger ants and social wasps are very troublesome to the apiarist in tropical and even in subtropical regions. They seize the workers and cut them in pieces with their powerful jaws. Having once reduced the hive defenders, they even make bold to enter and carry off the queen as well as help themselves to honey. Trapping them with honey or with meat and killing them, as well as destroying the nests when found, are the only remedies. The paper nests are easily burned away, while an effectual remedy against ants is to open the hill and pour in an ounce or two of bisulphide of carbon.
Spiders.—Webs made about hive entrances often capture bees as well as wax moths, and, notwithstanding this last-mentioned point in their favor, they had better be removed.
Toads and lizards.—These devour many bees, and whenever found near the hives should be destroyed or removed to the vegetable garden.
Birds.—Swallows and kingbirds have been accused of eating many bees. It is probable that the destruction of injurious insects by them more than makes amends for the bees taken. This was clearly proven in the case of the kingbird, stomachs of which, examined at the United States Department of Agriculture, showed only a very small percentage of honey bees, and these mostly drones.
MAMMALS.
Mice gaining access to the hive during winter gnaw out among the combs a nest cavity and eat honey, pollen, and bees. Low entrances, covered, if found necessary, with a strip of tin, will prevent the mice from gnawing larger holes, yet permit the bees to pass in and out. Skunks sometimes disturb hive entrances and catch bees as they come out. This is particularly vexatious in the winter, when colonies should be left quiet. In mountain localities, bears, led by their fondness for honey, still occasionally overturn beehives. The remedies for both of these are, of course, shooting or trapping.
ROBBER BEES.
When forage is scarce in the field, bees belonging to different colonies often wage fierce wars over the stores already in hives. Thousands are killed and the victors relentlessly carry off as booty every drop of honey from the vanquished hive, leaving its bees to starve miserably. A great stir and loud buzzing in the hive of the conquerors attests their rejoicing over the ill-gotten gains. Nor have they any code of morals which inclines them to select as opponents forces equal in strength to their own. With them "all's fair in war." Their only object is plunder, and they therefore select the most defenseless, a colony disorganized through loss of its queen being an especial mark for a combined attack.
Extreme caution to prevent robbing is always advisable. A little carelessness or neglect in the apiary early in the spring or toward the latter part of the season may result in much loss. 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. Queenless and weak colonies should be put in order if possible before the honey flow ceases. In any event the entrances of such hives should be contracted until but few or even no more than one bee can gain access to the interior at one time. Professor Cheshire has devised an excellent entrance block to prevent or check robbing. This is shown in [fig. 70], and is so simple that anyone can make it. When contracted and placed at the hive entrance it will be seen that the robbers must make their way through a narrow and bent passage, something they are loath to attempt, especially if at the first onset they find the passage well guarded.
