35 



of an evening buzzing around the hives of honey bees, frequently 

 hovering in the entrance, and there is little doubt that it enters the 

 hives and deposits its eggs on the comb. At any rate we do know 

 that the larva feeds upon the wax, and is at times so abundant that 

 it completely riddles the comb, and the bees have been known to 

 desert hives where the attack has been particularly bad. It seems 

 to prefer old comb, of which the wax is more solid than that which 

 is newly made. As exemplifying the extent to which this species 

 will infest a hive, I well remember a piece of comb, some three to 

 four inches square, being exhibited at one of our meetings to illus- 

 trate the manner in which the creature fed. After the meeting, as 

 no one seemed to want it, the piece of comb was put in a drawer, 

 and I suppose forgotten, until some weeks afterwards, when on 

 opening the drawer we were met by a perfect cloud of moths, many 

 of which must have been out for many days, and were considerably 

 knocked about by their flutterings, in their vain attempt to escape, 

 but others were quite fresh and provided many of us with excellent 

 series. In the days of the straw skep this moth must have been a 

 real menace to the bee-keeper, bat with the frame hive and present 

 day methods its chances of doing serious harm are much reduced. 



A/ihoiiiia socielUi, L., affects humble-bees' nests, apparently when 

 young feeding on the refuse that such nests contain, but when this 

 is all consumed they attack the comb and often thus destroy the 

 brood. They have been found in wasps' nests, but in that case it is 

 the papery material of which the nest is made that forms their 

 pabulum, and thus the brood is not destroyed. When the larvae 

 are full-fed in August or September, they leave the nest and spin 

 exceedingly tough cocoons in any material that they can pack them 

 in tightly, or even in a compact mass on the ground. I have had 

 a bundle of sticks, each measuring about a foot long and about as 

 thick as one's finger, the whole having a circumference of perhaps 

 a foot, stuffed so full of these exceedingly tough cocoons that no 

 ordinary strength that one might exert would separate them. The 

 larva lives securely in this retreat until the following May, when it 

 turns to a pupa and the moth appears in June. 



Galleria wellonella, L., is another hive feeder, but as it feeds 

 almost entirely on old combs, i.e., those of the previous year, it is 

 not likely to do much harm. Melissoblajites bipiinctaniis, Z., was fo 

 many years confused with a nearly allied species, M. anellus, 

 Schiff., and there is very little reliable information as to its 

 larval habits, but from the situations in which I have taken the 

 moth, and its habits, I incline to the view that it may be a wasp-nest 

 feeder. Be that as it may, it is not sufficiently common in this 

 country to be a menace. The remaining species, Corcijra cfp/ialonica, 

 Stainton, has totally different habits, being, like the Ephestias, a 

 warehouse pest, and has been reared from dried currants, biscuits, 

 and rice. 



