If the mischief of robbing is detected in its early stage, much may be done to stop it by narrowing the hive entrances, so that only one bee at a time can get in. This will enable the sentinels to examine each one who tries to enter, and to turn back strangers. If, however, the evil has taken a serious hold, it is better to close the attacked hive altogether for a time, and to hang near the entrance a sponge or cloth soaked in diluted carbolic acid, or some liquid potent and disagreeable in its odour. If these methods are of no avail, it will be better to remove the colony to a distance, or to a dark cellar; and by taking care to secure ventilation, and to give a supply of syrup, the community, which would otherwise surely perish, may be rescued. If returned in three or four days to its former stand, it is well to take the precaution of placing a sloping board before the entrance, so that its exact position may escape the notice of would-be robbers. These can often be detected early in their operations by their hovering restlessly in front of a hive, without the courage to settle, or, perhaps, because they do not know precisely where the opening is. A shower from a watering-pot will sometimes send them about their own proper business. Another method for stopping robber-bees from their plundering is to put at night into the hive attacked a small quantity of some strongly-smelling substance--a little musk, for example. The unwonted odour seems to rouse the inhabitants, and if they have a healthy queen, they will, in the morning, resolutely meet the robbers. Moreover, if any of these get in, the musk will so scent them that when they return to their own hives they will not be recognised by their own people, but will be put to death; and thus a double check is put on their depredations. It is a remarkable fact that, if a robbed colony be queenless, or if the queen is killed in the _mélée_, survivors from the fight will often fall to on the remnants of the stores, and, joining the forces of the conquerors, will convey the honey to the hive whose inhabitants are the plunderers, and will be peacefully accepted as citizens among its population. Of course the absence or the slaughter of a queen much more readily exposes her disheartened subjects to attacks from other bees; and this is another reason for seeing that no such calamity as queenlessness has befallen any stock when food is scarce.