140 THE HONEY-BEE. 



a sensible preference for those who are distending 

 their honey-bags with nectar. The swallow was 

 credited by the Greeks with being a robber of 

 apiaries, as the address of the old poet indicates : 



" Attic maiden, honey-fed, 



Chirping warbler, bear'st away 

 Thou the busy buzzing bee, 



To thy callow brood a prey ? 

 Warbler, thou a warbler seize ? 



Winged, one with lovely wings ? 

 Guest thyself, by summer brought, 



Yellow guests whom summer brings ? 

 Wilt not quickly let it drop ? 



'Tis not fair ; indeed, 'tis wrong, 

 That the ceaseless warbler should 



Die by mouth of ceaseless song. " l 



We have no reason to charge our swallows with 

 the crime of bee-eating. Domestic fowls will some- 

 times regale themselves with a meal of live bees, it 

 they can reach the entrances to the hives, so that it is 

 advisable to forbid their access to them. Mice occa- 

 sionally effect an entrance, especially into skeps, and 

 annoy the inhabitants by their disagreeable odour, 

 and by gnawing the combs, and eating brood and 

 honey. The winter is the time when there is most 

 danger from these plunderers, as the bees are then 

 too torpid with the cold to notice and to attack the 

 intruders. It is easy to prohibit their inroads, by 

 sufficiently contracting the entrances, and preventing 

 their gnawing the rims of the hives, or getting under 

 the top coverings. 



Moths, being active at night, require constant 

 watchfulness on the part of the bee-sentinels to 

 exclude them from their abodes. Attracted partly 



1 Translation given in Langstroth on the Honey-Bee. 



