THE AMBEICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



29 



ately retire to the very extremity of the hive, 

 as if to liold a consultation on tlie most prompt 

 measures to be adopted in order to repel the 

 threatened attack of so formidable an enemy. 

 It is determined nem. con. that a line of fortifi- 

 cations shall be immediately drawn out; and 

 accordingly, in the first place, they so contract 

 the entrance with a lump of loax and propolis.! 

 that the dreaded foe cannot possibly thrust his 

 body through. Not satisfied, however, with 

 this means of defence, they proceed to erect in 

 the interior of the hive a double wall, then 

 a covered way, then a secret gate, and then bat- 

 tlements, bastions, glacis and counterscarp. 



Now Mr. Lombard does not go so far as to 

 say that he has actually witnessed these fortifi- 

 cations, and therefore we will lay his account 

 of them to the charge of a wild and incoherent 

 fancy, and to an uncontrollable disposition ra- 

 ther than not to impart to us something that 

 was new and original, to tell us something which 

 he must have known to be decidedly false. 



It is not yet a determined point whether the 

 little insect with which the bees are afliicted 

 ought to be classed in the rank of their enemies. 

 It is undoubtedly a species of the louse, which 

 is not found on any other kind of fly. It is 

 scarcely or ever found upon the young bees, 

 but solely upon the old ones, and it is also the 

 old ones only of certain hives which are subject 

 to it. In general, only one of them has been 

 discovered upon each bee, and no great trouble 

 is required to obtain a view of it; it is of a red- 

 dish hue and about the size of the head of a 

 very small pin. It is almost always to be found 

 on the corslet, but no favorable opinion is form- 

 ed of those hives the bees of which are infected 

 with these vermin. But the question is, are 

 they in reality anywise injurious to the bees ? 

 and it may be answered, as far as our observa- 

 tions extend, in the negative; at all events, it 

 is certain that they do not cause them much 

 pain or annoyance; for, although it may not in- 

 deed be so easy to the ibee to draw one of its 

 feet over its corslet, as over any other part of 

 its body, (and it is perhaps that very circum- 

 stance which determines the louse to place it- 

 self there,) yet it is to be seen in many places 

 from which the leg of the bee might easily dis- 

 lodge it, but where it is nevertheless allowed to 

 remain unmolested. On the whole, these in- 

 sects are considered as highly injurious to the 

 bees, and various remedies have been proposed 

 for their extirpation, but without any decisive 

 success. 



The fox is a truly formidable enemy in some 

 countries; but although we once possessed an 

 apiary in a district in which that animal abound- 

 ed, we never knew a single instance in which 

 the hives were attacked by it. Speaking of the 

 fox as an enemy of the bee, Mr. Ducarue says: 

 "These rascals of foxes eat the bees as Avell as 

 the honey, but it is the honey to Avhich tliey are 

 the most partial. For two years, a particular 

 fox came every winter to overthrow my hives. 

 I put a chicken and some bread to amuse him, 

 and some poison to kill him; but no, the cun- 

 ning thief would not touch either; he went di- 

 rectly to the hives. Mark the sagacity of the 



animal: he would not come in summer, when 

 the bees were in full vigor, as he knew in what 

 manner he would be received ; but he steals 

 silly to the hive when the inhabitants are in a 

 state of torpor, and thus obtains their treasure 

 without incurring any danger himself." 



There is, however, an animal indigenous to this 

 country, which we dread to see in the midst of our 

 hives, more than all the foxes in the neighbor- 

 hood, and that is a pig, Avho, Avithout possessing 

 any immediate relish for the contents of a hive, 

 will frequently overthrow it, from that restless 

 spirit of mischief and destruction which is in- 

 herent in the animal. It is proverbial that good 

 cometh out of evil; and we once knew a cot- 

 tager who had his hives placed on the ground, 

 when his sow with a litter of pigs after her, 

 having obtained admission into his garden, 

 overthrew either by design or clumsiness one 

 of the hives. The screams of the little pigs, 

 and the loud gruutings of the old sow, who 

 were all furiously attacked by the bees, attract- 

 ed the cottager to his garden, when he saw the 

 damage that had been committed, and the same 

 night witnessed the death of six of his pigs. 

 The cottager wisely determined to place his 

 hives beyond the reach of the old sow in future; 

 and thus a pig effected what perhaps all the 

 power of human reason would not have been 

 able to accomplish. 



The lizard and the common newt are great 

 enemies of the bees; but if the hives be placed 

 on pedestals, they are safe from the depreda- 

 tions of those vermin. The Abbe della Rocca 

 describes the lizard as a truly formidable ,ene- 

 my, and with the view of arresting its depreda- 

 tions, an earthen pot glazed on the inside is put 

 into the ground, hatf filled with water, the 

 edges of it being parallel with the surface. The 

 lizards fall into the water and are drowned, and 

 it not unfrequently happens that a mouse falls 

 into the same trap. 



In general, it ought to be strongly impressed 

 upon the mind of every keeper of bees, that 

 the attacks of their enemies are generally car- 

 ried on in secret, and tlierefore he should al- 

 ways be upon the alert to destroy them, before 

 his property has received, perhaps, an irreme- 

 diable injury. — Iluish. 



Independently of the interest which attaches 

 to the apiarian art from economical considera- 

 tions, and the pleasure of appropriating to one's 

 own use the surplus produce of bee industry — 

 a pleasure, by the way, of a very exquisite kind, 

 as every bee-master Avill bear us witness — it 

 merits, as a branch of natural history, the at- 

 tention of every lover of nature and curious in- 

 vestigator of her secret things. 



How often is the expression of surprise heard 

 from the lips of some individual who has start- 

 ed an apiary, that his bees have disapi)ointed 

 him, when, if particular inquiries were insti- 

 tuted into the cause of the disaster, ten to one 

 it would be found that his hives had been left 

 unnoticed by him from October to May, and 

 from May to October! 



