408 The Bee Moth. 
ENEMIES OF BEES. 
Swift was no mean entomologist, as is shown in the fol- 
lowing stanza: 
“The little fleas that do us tease, 
Have lesser fleas to bite them, 
And these again have lesser fleas, 
And so ad infinitum,” 
Bees are no exception to this law, as they have to brave 
the attacks of reptiles, birds, and other insects. In fact 
they are beset with perils at home and perils abroad, perils 
by night and perils by day. 
THE BEE MOTH—GALLERIA CEREANA, FABR. 
This insect belongs to the family of snout moths, Pyral- 
ide. This snout is not the tongue, but the palpi, which 
fact was not known by Mr. Langstroth, who is usually so 
accurate, as he essayed to correct Dr. Harris, who stated 
correctly that the tongue, the ligula, was “very short and 
hardly visible.” This family includes the destructive hop 
moth, and the noxious meal and clover moths, and its mem- 
bers are very readily recognized by their usually long palpi, 
the so-called snouts. 
The eggs of the bee moth are white, globular and very 
small. These are usually pushed into crevices by the female 
moth as she extrudes them, which she can easily do by aid 
of her spy-glass-like ovipositor. They may be laid in the 
hive, in the crevice underneath it, or about the entrance. 
Soon these eggs hatch, when the gray, dirty looking cater- 
pillars, with brown heads, seek the comb on which they 
feed. To better protect themselves from the bees, they 
wrap themselves in a silken tube (Fig. 189), which they 
have power to spin. They remain in this tunnel of silk 
during all their growth, enlarging it as they eat. By look- 
ing closely, the presence of these larve may be known by 
this robe of glistening silk, as it extends in branching out- 
lines (Fig. 190) along the surface of the comb. A more 
speedy detection, even, than the defaced comb, comes from 
the particles of comb, intermingled with the powder-like 
droppings of the caterpillars, which will always be seen on 
