BEE-KEEPING FOR WOMEN. 



47 



BEE-MOTH. 



ideal for our own bee-keeping, and that is to 

 keep bees for honey and for "fun.'' We 

 shall have plenty of honey for our o^Yn table, 

 and just enough to bestow on the neighbors 

 so they will not get tired of it ; and fun 

 enough to season life with an out-of-door 

 interest and the feeling that no summer day 

 is likely to pass without a surprise. 



BEE-KEEFERS' SOCIETIES. See Or- 

 ganization OF Bee-keepers. 



BEE LEGISLATION. 



ON Bees. 



See Legislation 



BIiZ!-]V[OTZI. When you hear a person 

 complain that tlie wax-worm killed his bees, 

 you can set him down at once as knowing 

 very little about bees; and if a hive is of- 

 fered you that has an attachment or trap to 



square box is, in fact, all we want for a hive; 

 but as we must have the combs removable, 

 we require frames to hold them ; and if 

 these frames are made so that bees can get 

 all around and about them, we have done all 

 we can to make a moth-proof hive. 



Of course, colonies will at times get weak- 

 ened ; and under the best of care, with com- 

 mon bees especially, worms will sometimes 

 be found in the combs. Now if you have 

 the simple hives shown in these pages you 

 can very quickly take out the combs, and 

 with the point of your knife remove every 

 web and worm, scrape ofE the debris, and 

 assist the bees very much. Where there is 

 an accumulation of filth on the bottom- 

 board, lift out all the combs, and brush it 

 off, and be sine you crush all the worms 



A sample of how the eggs and cocoons of the bee-moth are deposited on wood. Sometimes the wood 

 grooved or eaten out. The illustration fails to convey the real filthiness of the mass. 



catch or kill moths, you may set the vender 

 down as a vagabond and swindler. You 

 can scarcely plead ignorance for him ; for a 

 man who will take upon himself the respon- 

 sibility of introducing hives, without know- 

 ing something of our modern books and bee- 

 journals, should receive treatment sufficient- 

 ly rough to send him home, or into some 

 business he understands. 



When a colony gets weakened so much 

 that it can not cover and protect its combs, 

 robbers and wax- worms help themselves as 

 a natural consequence ; but neither rarely do 

 any harm if there are plenty of bees, and a 

 clean tight hive. If a hive is so made that 

 crevices will admit a worm, and not allow a 

 bee to go after it, it may make some trouble 

 in almost any colony; and we can not remem- 

 ber that we ever saw a patented moth-proof 

 hive that was not much worse in this respect 

 than a plain simple box hive. A plain 



therein, for they will crawl right back into 

 the hive if carelessly thrown on the ground. 



If you keep only Italians, or even all hy- 

 brids, you may go over a hundred colonies 

 and not find a single trace of wax-worms. 

 At the very low price at which Italian queens 

 can now be purchased, it would seem that 

 we are very soon to forget that a bee-moth 

 ever existed ; and the readiest way we know 

 to get combs that are badly infested free 

 from worms is to hang them, one at a time, 

 in the center of a full hive of Italians. You 

 will find all the webs and worms strewn 

 arovmd the entrance of the hive in a couple 

 of hours, and the comb cleaned up nicer 

 than you could do it if you were to sit down 

 all day at the task. 



Occasionally you will find that webs and 

 cocoons are deposited back of the division- 

 board or in some crack or crevice of the 

 hive. Sometimes they will be located be- 



