Wasps, Bees, and Ants 



531 



will occur in and about the entrance and inside the hive itself, resulting in 

 the death of hundreds, even thousands, of bees. More insidious and even 

 more dangerous are the stealthy invasions of a small dusty-winged moth, 

 the bee-moth (Galleria mellonella) , which, slipping in at night unobserved, 

 lays its eggs in cracks; the larvae which hatch from the eggs feed on the 

 wax of the combs, and as they spin a silken net over them wherever they go, 

 the presence of many such works great injury both in the actual destruction 

 of comb and in the felting and cobwebbing of the interior of the hive with 

 the tough silken netting. Other still more insidious enemies there are, as 

 the minute bee-lice (Braula), which attach themselves to the bees and suck 

 out their body-juices, and the invisible bacterial germs of foul-brood and 

 other characteristic bee diseases. But all these are beyond the sensitiveness 

 of the guards to recognize, and for the successful fighting of them the aid 

 of the bee-keeper is necessary. 



The feeding and care of the young bees, the larvae, have already been 

 partly described in the account of the life-history of the different kinds of 



FIG. 736. An ordinary beehive made into an observation-hive by inserting glass panes 

 in sides and putting a glass sheet under the wooden cover. (Drawn from hive in 

 the author's laboratory.) 



individuals in the community and cannot be further referred to in this brief 

 history of the honey-bees' domestic economy. Of course only the more con- 

 spicuous features in this economy have been described at all; a host of inter- 

 esting details cannot even be mentioned. But enough has been said, surely, 

 to indicate the fascinating field for observation afforded by a honey-bee com- 

 munity. If such a community be kept in an observation-hive and this hive 



