BEES, BEE-HIVES, AND BEE CULTURE. 109 



the swarm, we took them home, and replaced them in the hive they 

 had quitted. It was almost destitute of honey; but by liberal 

 feeding, and lessening the entrance so that only one bee at a time 

 could find ingress or egress, we succeeded in inducing them to rest 

 in their old home. Thus nearly half a day's exertion was needed 

 to save a fine colony, which would otherwise have been utterly lost 

 by the power of the relentless wasps. 



Much watchfulness is needed to prevent the loss of swarms, and 

 and the foregoing incident may serve to suggest the necessity of 

 having hives so located as to be constantly within view, either from 

 the dining room, or of those whose duties oblige them to be near 

 the apiary. If we had not happened to be at hand at the moment 

 this colony started, it would have been irretrievably lost to us. 

 Many swarms and colonies are lost simply because the departure 

 takes place without any one witnessing it. Let us hope that run- 

 away bees may always fall into the hands of those who are as 

 capable of taking care of them as our neighbours appeared to be on 

 the occasion we have described. 



Another formidable enemy of bees are the moths. These insects 

 are creatures of the night, as the bees of the day, and they make 

 their way into the hives under cover of darkness, in spite of the bee- 

 sentinels. They deposit their eggs in any crevices in or near the 

 hive that they can find. There the warmth of the hive or of the 

 sheltered situation, causes the eggs speedily to hatch, and then the 

 maggots soon work their way to the comb and larvse food, which 

 they greedily devour, thereby often bringing about the gradual but 

 certain destruction of the whole community of bees. The best way 

 of keeping moths outside the hives is to lessen the entrance, as 

 before alluded to. Also, in the early spring, the hives should be lifted 

 from their floorboards, which must then be made thoroughly clean^ 

 and all crevices and corners about the hive and stand should be 

 scraped, so as to get rid of all eggs of moths and other insects 

 before the warm weather hatches them or enables them to do 

 mischief. The bee-moth is not so troublesome 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. 



