C-i SEES. 



tliey are at rest, or when running-, their wide wings are 

 folded over the body into a very small space indeed, and 

 offer no impediment to the movements of their feet. It is, 

 indeed, necessary that some provision of this nature should 

 be made, for when one of them has succeeded in slipping 

 past the sentinels, there is a grand commotion in the hive, 

 each bee chasing the galleria moth, and endeavoured to 

 secure it with its teeth, when its fate would be instant 

 death, at the jaws of the infuriated multitude. But generally 

 the active little creature having once obtained an entrance, 

 fulfils the object for which it came there ; for after running 

 and doubling and twisting about among the combs, it evades 

 its enemies, and secretes itself in some crevice, where it 

 deposits it eggs in safety. The object of its life is nov/ 

 accomplished, and it cares little what becomes of itself after- 

 wards. As for the hive, the mischief is done, for the eggs 

 are sure to be hatched, and successive colonies of these destruc- 

 tive little creatures are soon found, some of whom rush out 

 of the door to carry destruction into other hives, while 

 others, finding themselves in the midst of plenty, lay their 

 eggs in the same hive where they themselves were born. 

 After all this labour and perseverance, what a strange place 

 this seems for a mother to choose, and what a chevaiix de 

 frise, as it were, of stings all about her pretty ones ! It 

 matters not, however, to them, as she well knows. The 

 larva, once successfully hatched, rapidly covers itself with 

 silk, v/hich the bees cannot destroy nor penetrate with their 

 stings for the destruction of the noxious intruder. Gradu- 

 ally this silken covering becoms a tube or covered way 

 stretching in any direction that the larva pleases right 

 through the combs. When this enemy becomes numerous 

 it is all over with the hive; the bees have no choice but 

 to desert the place altogether, and construct a new habi- 

 tation. 



Ko precaution should be neglected which can keep out these 

 tiny but most destructive foes. When they have once made 

 a lodgment in the hive, their silken tunnels ramify in every 

 direction like the various lines on Bradshaw's railway-map. 

 Their voracity is almost incredible, and the power of their 

 jaws quite extraordinary. Wishing to be able to place 

 oefove the eyes of entomologists the combs of bees in their 



