DESntUCTIOX OF THE MOTH- WO KM. 133 



Suppose, if you please, that the worm has no thread 

 attached above, and the hive is far enough above to pre- 

 vent his reaching it. Of course he can't get up ; but how 

 are the bees to do any better ? The worm can reach as 

 high as they can. You tliink the bee can fly up ; so it 

 will, sometimes, but will try a dozen times to get up some 

 other way, and when it does fly, a smooth board is a very 

 bad place from which to start. Did you ever watch by a 

 hive thus raised, towards night, in April or May, when it 

 was a little cool, and see the industrious little insects ar- 

 riving with a load as heavy as they could possibly carry, 

 chilly, and nearly out of breath, scarcely able to reach 

 home, and there witness their vain attempts to get among 

 their fellows above them ? If you never observed this, I 

 wish you would do so, and when you find them giving up 

 in despair, and perishing after many fruitless attempts, I 

 think if you possess sympathy, benevolence, or even sel- 

 fishness, you will be induced to do as I did — discard at 

 once wire hooks, and all other contrivances under the hive, 

 in the spring, and give the bees, when they do get home 

 Avith a load, what they richly deserve, — protection. 



But if you set the hives close to the bottom board, you 

 will say " the worms will get between the bottom of the 

 hive and the board." "Well, what then ? I expect if you 

 intend to succeed, that you wUl get them out, and destroy 

 them. I am as willing to find a worm under the edge of 

 the hive, and dispatch it, as to have it creep into some 

 place out of sight, and change to a moth. I once trimmed 

 off the bottom of my hives to a thin edge, so they could 

 not have this place for their cocoons, but I now prefer to 

 have them square. No investment brings profitable re- 

 turns without proper attention. If you plant a field with 

 corn, you do not expect that the whole work is finished 

 with the planting. Neither should you expect when you 

 set up a stock of bees, that a full yield will be realized 



