ENEMIES OF BEES. 24-9 



more effectual than the slaughter of hundreds at a later 

 period.* If the common hives are used, the worms will 

 usually be found where the hive rests upon the bottom- 

 board. Such hives should be propped up on both ends 

 with strips of wood, about three-eighths of an inch thick, 

 and a piece of woolen-rag put between the bottom-board 

 and the back of the hive. The full-grown worm retreat- 

 ing to this warm hiding-place to spin its cocoon, may be 

 easily caught, and effectually dealt with. Only provide 

 some hollow, easily accessible to the worms when they 

 wish to spin, and to yourself when you want them, and 

 as bees in good condition will not permit them to spin 

 among the combs, you can easily entrap them. If the 

 hive has lost its queen, and the worms have gained pos- 

 session of it, break it up, instead of reserving it as a 

 moth-breeder, to infest your Apiary. 



In the movable-comb hive, blocks of a peculiar con- 

 struction (Plates HI, VI, Figs. 11, 17) are used, both to 

 entrap the worms and exclude the moth. The only place 

 where she can get into these hives, is at the bee-entrance, 

 and as abundant ventilation can be given, independent of 

 this, it may be contracted to suit all possible emergencies, 



* Few, who have not seen their ravages by lifting out a comb, are aware how 

 many young bees fall a prey to the worm as it burrows in the comb. 



Mr. M. Quinby, of St. Johnsville, New York, whose common-sense treatise on 

 " The Mysteries of See-Keeping" will richly repay perusal, is of opinion that the 

 larger number of imperfect bees carried out of the hive in the Spring, have been 

 destroyed by the worms. He thinks that enough are often thus lost from a single 

 hive to make a moderate swarm of bees. 



This estimate will not seem extravagant, if we take into account the number of 

 breeding-cells which are destroyed, and the large vacancies which are often made 

 by the bees in cutting out the webs and cocoons of the moth. 



Dr. Kirtland, in an article in the Ohio Farmer, Dec. 185T, alluding to the times 

 before the advent of the bee-moth, says : " In those halcyon days of bee-raising, 

 swarms often came out earlier, and in larger numbers, than in recent times. It 

 was no unusual occurrence for a Spring swarm to fill the hive with stores and 

 young brood so rapidly, as to allow it, also, to throw off a swarm sufficiently early 

 for the latter to lay up stores for Winter." 

 11* 



