264 THE BEE keeper's MANUAL. 



merry mom. Alas ! that so much ingenuity should be all 

 in vain ! Chickens are often sleepy, and wish to retire 

 sometime before the bees feel that they have completed 

 their full day's work, and some of them are so much op- 

 posed to early rising, either from ill-health, or downright lazi*' 

 ness, that they sit moping on their roost, long after the cheer- 

 ful sun has purpled the glowing East. Even if this device 

 were perfectly successful, it could not save from ruin, a 

 colony which has lost its queen. The truth is, that almost 

 all the contrivances upon which we are instructed to rely, 

 are just about equivalent to the lock carefully put upon the 

 stable door, after the horse has been stolen ; or to attempts 

 to prevent corruption from fastening upon the body of an 

 animal, after the breath of life has forever departed. 



Are there then no precautions to which we may resort, 

 except by using hives which give the control over every 

 comb ? Certainly there are, and I shall now describe^them 

 in such a manner as to aid all who find themselves annoyed 

 by the inroads of the bee-moth. 



Let the prudent bee-master be deeply impressed with 

 the very great importance of destroying early in the sea- 

 son, the larvee of the bee-moth. " Prevention is," at all 

 times, " better than cure" : a single pair of worms that 

 are permitted to undergo their changes into the winged in- 

 sect, may give birth to some hundreds which before the 

 close of the season, may fill the Apiary with thousands of 

 their kind. The destruction of a single worm early in the 

 Spring, may thus be more efficacious than that of hundreds, 

 at a later period. If the common hives are used, these 

 worms must be sought for in their hiding places, under the 

 edges of the hive ; or the hive may be propped up, on the 

 two ends, with strips of wood, about three eighths of an 

 inch thick ; and a piece of old woolen rag put between the 



