THE BEE-MOTH. 491 



noticed endeavoring, before sunset, to gain entrance into the 

 hives. 



"If disturbed in the daytime," says Dr. Harris, "tliey open 

 their wings a little, and spring or glide swiftly away, so that 

 it is very diflScult to seize or hold them." 



They are surprisingly agile, both on foot and on the wing, 

 .the motion of a bee being very slow, in comparison. "They 

 are," says Reaumur, "the most nimble-footed creatures that 

 I know." 



In the evening, they take wing, when the bees are at rest, 

 and hover around the hive till, having found the door, they 

 go in and lay their eggs. 



"It is curious," says Huber, "to observe how artfully the 

 moth knows how to profit by the disadvantage of the bees, 

 which require much light for seeing objects, and the precau- 

 tions taken by the latter in reconnoitering and expelling so 

 dangerous an enemy. 



' ' Those that are prevented from getting within the hive, lay 

 their eggs in the cracks on the outside; and the little worm-like 

 caterpillars hatched therefrom, easily creep into the hive 

 through the cracks, or gnaw a passage for themselves under the 

 edges of it." — Dr. Harris. 



One afternoon, about twenty-five years ago, our Senior 

 saw a female bee-moth on the front of an eke hive (378), 

 and noticed that she was laying in the crack, between two 

 ekes, through which the propolis could be seen; the ekes be- 

 ing rabbeted to received the comb-bars, their thickness there 

 was reduced to about three-eighths of an inch. 



The moth laid about ten eggs, then walked about, seem- 

 ing satisfied with her work, and came back to lay about the 

 same number, repeating the manoeuver several times. 



This shows that moths may lay eggs in the hive from the 

 outside, and that propolis is a food for their just-hatched 

 larvae. One of our objects, in preserving the strip around 



