I knew one of these old wise-heads--such a one as spoken of in the chapter on "Swarming and Hiving"--to use his familiar logic: "What he didn't know about bees wasn't worth knowing. He didn't want any book larnin' to know how to keep bees; he had allers kept 'em, and his father before him." Well, this Mr. Wiseman found, or thought he had found, that his neighbor's bees were robbing his stocks. "Zounds!" says he, "I'll fix 'em!" So he goes early in the morning, before the bees are flying, and confines his stock, which he thought was being robbed, by nailing a piece of board closely over each entrance to the hive, so no bees could pass in or out. About sunrise; or a little later, the robber bees begin to collect on the front of his hive, seeking to gain access. He waits until a quart or more have collected, and then he takes two or three quarts of boiling water, and dashes it upon them. This he continues through that day, and the next, at intervals, as often as there are any bees collected on the front of his hive. During this time he has killed more than _a half bushel of bees_. The third day he opens his hive, but to his great surprise, _no bees appear_, and on examination he finds the bees all dead. They had _suffocated_. Want of air, and the boiling water upon the hive, had destroyed them. And to crown all, and make his loss still more severe, he found it was his own bees that were engaged in plundering his stock, and his neighbor's bees had nothing to do with it. The vast number of bees slaughtered with the hot water, so reduced in numbers several of his stocks, that they never recovered, but fell prey to the moth miller that season. And that was the way he "fixed 'em." There are so many whims and false notions about bees, that great care should be exercised in adopting plans recommended by inexperienced bee keepers, or that class who claim to know everything about bees, yet by their practice show that they know very little. There is one other plan, aside from contracting the entrance, which will prove successful, but which is a little more trouble to apply. If you find a stock is being robbed, look them over, and be sure that they have a fertile, healthy queen. If the queen is found to be all right, but with few bees, take from this hive two comb frames filled with comb, _with no eggs or brood_, and go to a populous stock, and exchange these two combs for two others filled with brood. Select such as have most of the brood sealed over, as you want that which will hatch the quickest. Put these two combs in the hive that is being robbed, fasten up the stock by putting wire cloth over the entrances, giving them air yet preventing the passage of bees.[7]