THE HONEY-BEE. 149 



remove them into a dwelling-house in order to shelter 

 them from the winter's cold, or when a long track of 

 inclement weather confines them within doors, they 

 are obliged to retain their faeces so long that the con- 

 sequence is an attack of dysentery. Its existence is 

 easily detected ; the floor-board and the combs are 

 covered with stains produced by the excrement, of a 

 dark brown colour, and which diffuse through the hive 

 a most offensive smell, and this last circumstance, no 

 doubt, contributes to augment the evil, for the bees 

 and brood, inhaling only an unwholesome air, must 

 be fatally affected. 



Enemies of Bees. The enemies of bees are nume- 

 rous, though many of them are by no means formi- 

 dable. Swallows, spiders, ants, frogs, wood-lice, poul- 

 try, small birds of almost every kind, are all reckoned 

 amongst their foes, but their ravages are trifling, and 

 seem to have for their object rather the dead bodies 

 than the living insects. During the time of the mas- 

 sacre of the drones, we have often seen blackbirds 

 stealing from among the bushes near the apiary, in the 

 autumnal evenings, and carrying off, one by one, the 

 whole of the carcases of the males that had been 

 destroyed during the day ; we have never observed 

 them attacking the living insect. There is a kind of 

 beetle also, (Clerus Apiarius, PL VIII. fig. 1,) which, 

 according to Aristotle, inhabits bee-hives, and which, 

 while yet in the larva state, feeds on the larvae of the 

 bees ; we have never heard of any instance of such 

 being met with, or injurious to bees in this country. 

 More to be dreaded are field-mice, which sometimes 



