WASP& AND MOTHS. 229 



them to do mischief. The bee-moth is not so trouble- 

 some in England as it is in America [and some parts 

 of Germany; but still its encroachments should be 

 carefully guarded against in this country, for if not, 

 it may easily increase to a very serious extent. In 

 the season of 1865, wasps were as few as they were 

 numerous the preceding year ; their paucity was attri- 

 butable either to frosts in May or to heavy rains 

 in June, which destroyed them in their nests. In 

 general, wasps are great depredators of wall-fruit, but, 

 in the autumn oefore mentioned, the bees occupied the. 

 wasps' foraging-ground. Perhaps never in the raemoty 

 of bee-keepers did bees feast Upon fruit in the same 

 manner. Various reasons have been assigned for this 

 unusual occurrence ; some thought that as there were so 

 few wasps the bees were unmolested, and enjoyed the 

 saccharine matter in the fruit without let or hindrance^- 

 for bees are about as partial to the company of wasps 

 as mice are to that of rats.^ Other bee-keepers re- 

 marked the sudden and early termination of the honey- 

 gathering, and conjectured that the bees, being anxious 

 to make up their winter store, endeavoured to bring 

 home nectar from the fruit because the weather was 

 unusually fine. There was one feature which is worth 

 remarking : as far as our observation extended, the 

 bees did not, like the wasps, break the skin Of sound 

 fruit, but were satisfied with lapping the juice of the 

 ripe fruit that had the skin already broken. 



