SOUTHERN BEE CULTURE 45 



pecially in summer and fall, depositing their eggs in cracks and crevices 

 about the hives and on the comb too at every opportunity; for they can dart 

 about over the comb where the bees are scattering over it, and keep out of 

 the way in places where the bees can not go, and deposit their eggs all 

 through the hives ; but if the colonies are strong, and kept so, the bees 

 will be constantly passing over the comb, and the interior of the hives, 

 removing these eggs or the tiny moths should any of them hatch; but if 

 there are any cracks in the interior of the hives large enough for them 

 to develop in they will do so, especially about the bottoms, where the 

 lodgments may collect, for they "will be food to them, and the cracks will 

 be a place of refuge, and the moths will develop in them. Should any colonies 

 become queenless, and remain so for a few weeks, there being nO bees 

 raised, and the old ones dying out fast, soon they will be too weak to crawl 

 constantly over their comb, and soon it is unoccupied; and the moths, 

 old and young, are present, and at once begin their destructive work 

 by eating and webbing their way through the comb and rearing their young 

 in great numbers, and soon they will completely destroy the colony; for 

 the combs will be nothing more than a mass of webbs and large fat moths. 

 As seen elsewhere in this book, as soon as a colony of bees loses its 

 queen it is on the road to destruction until it is supplied with another 

 queen ; and even then it will be lost if she is not given to the colony in 

 time, or the comb all removed and given to strong colonies, except just 

 enough for them to occupy well. So it wall be seen that the moth only 

 hastens the destruction, for ruin is already upon them, and if a colony of 

 bees runs short of stores it will, in like manner, go to destruction be- 

 cause no small amount of honey is consumed in rearing young bees ; and if 

 they haven't it they can not raise them; and as ^ the old ones are fast 

 dying the comb will soom become unoccupied around on the outside of 

 the brood-nest, when the moth will take it, and soon the young queen and 

 her bees will be lost because there was no honey in the field which they 

 could gather, nor any in the hive, or it was not supplied with food to 

 raise young 'bees to keep the hive populated. All colonies are subject to 

 the moth at any time during warm weather, but they can not destroy a 

 single colony in all the South unless the keeper of the bees neglects the 

 duty he owes to his bees. Thousands of colonies are lost in the South every 

 year in this way, and this great loss of bees is laid to the bee-moth when 

 they have done only a very small part of it. Let me advise right here, 

 dear reader, that the cultivation of bees is the most reasonable work 

 that I have any knowledge of. It is necessary and advantageous to 

 them; they soon take advantage of the proper care they receive, an,d adhere, 

 to it as long as they can. Take a colony of bees that, for some cause be- 

 yond its power, has run short of stores, with no honey anywhere that 

 they can gather, and on the way to destruction, will cease rearing brood 

 except, perhaps, a very small batch, and it scrimps along, thinking per- 

 haps that something will happen for its 'betterment. Now feed them and 

 note results. They will at once, begin to feed their small, dried-up, half- 

 dead queen, and soon she will be large, and her atdomen extend to its fullest 



