APPENDIX. . 
MICE.—AIl honey-houses should be made mouse-proof, and, when- 
ever surplus combs are stored away, care should be taken to exclude mice, 
for the combs will be completely ruined if mice gain entrance. 
When bees are wintered in the cellar, the entrance of the hive should 
be covered with a strip of coarse-mesh cloth, just coarse enough to let 
bees through and yet exclude mice; or else the entrance should be con- 
tracted to a 34-inch slot through which the mice cannot enter, 
SKUNKS.—Skunks are a great nuisance to the beekeeper, since they 
eat. so many bees as to weaken the colonies seriously. At night the skunks 
seratch in front of the hives and disturb the bees so that they rush out of 
the hive to repel the invader. They are then rapidly eaten by the skunks 
who particularly relish them. 
Skunks may be poisoned by putting strychnine inside of small chunks 
of beef and leaving the beef at the entrance of the hive where the skunks 
have been working. Because of the danger of poisoning the neighbors’ cats 
and dogs, however, we do not advise relying on poison. It is safer to pro- 
tect the colonies by fencing them in with four-foot poultry netting, one 
foot of which is folded at right angles so as to be flat on the ground on the 
outside of the fence, the outer edge being staked down to the ground. The 
skunks do not understand how to get under the foot of netting lying on 
the ground. , 
WAX MOTHS.—Wax woths do not trouble strong colonies of Ital-, 
ians, but in the South where black bees are kept in box hives they are very 
destructive. There are two species of wax moths—the larger and the lesser. 
The larger is more common and more destructive than the lesser. The 
work of the two moths is similar except that the webs of the smaller one 
are finer and nearer the surface of the comb. 
The larger adult moth is 54 of an inch in length, with a wing expanse 
of 1% inches. It is ashy gray in appearance with the back third of each 
front wing bronze in color. 
Weak colonies of bees do not defend themselves so well as strong 
ones, and therefore moths readily enter and deposit their eggs on the combs. 
When the eggs hatch the larvae gradually eat their way through the midrib 
of the comb, leaving the comb all undermined with passageways of web 
work spotted with excreta. In a short time such combs will be completely 
ruined. By keeping strong, healthy colonies of Italians, such trouble 
may be avoided. 
When storing away surplus combs, however, it should be remembered 
that moths, if permitted, will destroy them even more readily than the combs 
in the hives of bees, for in the case of stored combs there are no bees to 
repel the moths. For this reason all supers of combs stored in the honey- 
house should be carefully piled and covered so that no moth may enter. If, 
however, the combs contain eggs from the wax moth when taken from the 
hive, the wax worms will develop later on. If moths should appear in 
stored material, and yet the combs are not badly affected, they may be 
given to strong Italian colonies to clean up. If the condition is more 
serious, the combs will need to be fumigated. In this case scrape all propo- 
lis from the top and bottom edges of the supers so the bodies will fit tight 
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