These scouts disappear for a time, and the hive settles down to its wonted, busy tranquillity. But soon a little blur of bees may be seen coming over the hedge-top, and making straight for the selected hive. There is no more crafty reconnoitring. It is to be battle undisguised. The robbers descend upon their prey, and at once a terrific uproar begins, a desperate hand-to-hand fight between besiegers and besieged. Left to themselves, the weak stock will have little chance from the outset. It is quickly overcome. And then a curious thing often happens. The bees of the home-colony which have survived the fight, join forces with the victors, and themselves help to rifle and carry away to the robbers’ lair the treasure which is their own by right. Luckily, the bee-master has an all but unfailing preventive of this vexatious trouble ready to his hand. He can safely leave all those hives which are numerically strong of citizens to take care of themselves, and those which are weak of population he can join together in twos or threes, converting them also into strong, self-protective colonies. The modern movable-comb hive is a power in the hands of the capable beeman, for the comb-frames from several hives can be placed together in one, and the bees will unite quite peaceably at this season, if all are well dusted with a flour-dredger, or treated with a scent-spray, so that in odour and appearance they may be alike. Probably every hive has its own distinct odour, which is shared by all its denizens, and this is no doubt the means by which the sentinel bees at the entrance recognise their own comrades, while they promptly fall upon all interloping strangers. The preparation of the hive for the winter is of a piece with all else that the bee undertakes. As the area of the brood-nest shrinks, the empty cells are filled with honey, this being brought down from the store-cells farthest away. The foragers keep steadily at work whenever the weather holds, gathering up the remnants of the feast and bringing them home to swell the winter-larder. Where there is much ivy, a fine October will often see the hives as busy again as ever they were in the bravest days of June; but the throng of bees is manifestly smaller. The rich song of life begins later in the day, and lasts only during the brightest hours; and that wonderful night-sound, the deep underground thunder of the fanning bees, is gone from the bee-garden, just as the scent of the clover-nectar, brewing and steaming in the hives, no longer drifts across in the darkness, filling the bee-master’s house with the fragrance he loves more than all else in the world.