put the bee on

Verb

put the bee on (third-person singular simple present puts the bee on, present participle putting the bee on, simple past and past participle put the bee on)

1. (US, slang, transitive) To finish off; to beat.
   • When Carmen quipped in, “Well, Mr. President somebody has to put the bee on them,” the General asserted, “It won't be me, never.”2001, Travis Beal Jacobs, Eisenhower at Columbia, Transaction, page 152
2. (US, slang, transitive) To beg from; to borrow money from.
   • Sometimes I'd see a woman in the backyard, and, if she had a kind face I'd put the bee on her.1938, Clifford Robe Shaw, Henry Donald McKay, “et al.”, in Brothers in Crime, University of Chicago, page 157
   • I don’t want to be the kind of a guy that would take advantage of him. You know one time I put the bee on him for a buck.1945, John Steinbeck, Cannery Row