246 . THE HIVE AND HONEY-BF;E. 



destruction is certain ; while not unfrequently, after an 

 experience of years, he does not believe that there is such 

 a thing as a queen-bee ! In the Chapter on the Loss of 

 the Queen, full directions have been given for protecting 

 colonies in movable-comb hives, from a calamity which, 

 more than all others the want of food* excepted 

 exposes them to destruction. 



When a colony becomes hopelessly queenless, its 

 destruction is certain. Even should the bees retain their 

 wonted zeal in gathering stores and defending themselves 

 against the moth, they must as certainly perish (p. 58) as a 

 carcass must decay, even if it is not assailed by filthy flies 

 and ravenous worms. Occasionally, after the death of the 

 bees, large stores of honey are found in their hives. Such 

 instances, however, though once not uncommon, are now 

 rare; for a motherless hive is almost always assaulted 

 by stronger stocks, which, seeming to have an instinctive 

 knowledge of its orphanage, hasten to take possession 

 of its spoils ; or, if it escape the Scylla of these pitiless plun- 

 derers, it is dashed upon a more merciless Charybdis, when 

 the miscreant moths find out its destitution. Every year, 

 multitudes of hives are bereft of their queens, most of 

 which are either robbed by other bees or sacked by the 

 moth, or both robbed and sacked, while their owner im- 

 putes all the mischief to something else than the real cause. 



To one acquainted with the habits of the moth, the 

 bee-keeper who is constantly lamenting its ravages, 

 seems almost as much deluded as a farmer would be who, 

 after diligently searching for his missing cow, and finding 

 her nearly devoured by carrion worms, should denounce 

 these worthy scavengers as the primary cause of her 

 untimely end. 



* Colonies which are almost starved become almost as indifferent to the attacks 

 of the moth as those which have no queen. 



