144 PUTTING OSr AND TAKING OFF BOXES. 



When combs are filled with honey, the worms work 

 only on the surface, eating nothing but the sealing of the 

 cells, seldom penetrating to the centre, unless there is an 

 empty cell. Disgusting as they seem to be, they dislike 

 being daubed with honey. Wax, not honey, is their food. 



THE WAT THE WORMS GET IN. 



The reader would like to know how these worms came 

 in the jars, when to all appearance, it was a physical im- 

 possibility. I would like to give a positive answer, but 

 can not. I will ofi"er a theory, however, which is original, 

 and therefore open to criticism. If there is any better so- 

 lution of the problem, I would be glad to hear it. 



From the 1st of June till late in the fall, the moth may 

 be found around our hives, active at night, but quiet by 

 day. Her only object, probably, is to find a suitable place 

 to deposit her eggs, where her young may have food. If 

 no proper and convenient place is found, she will be con- 

 tent with such as she can find. The eggs must be depos- 

 ited somewhere, and she leaves them in the cracks of the 

 hive, in the dust at the bottom, or outside as near the 

 entrance as she dare approach. The bees running over 

 them may accidentally attach one or more to their feet or 

 bodies, and carry them among the combs where they will 

 be left to hatch. It is not at all probable that the moth 

 ever passed through the hive, among the bees, to deposit 

 her eggs in the jars before mentioned. Had these jars 

 been left on the hive, not a worm would have ever defaced 

 a comb, because, when the bees are numerous, each worm 

 is removed as soon as it commences its work of destruc- 

 tion — that is, when it works on the surface, as it does in the 

 boxes. By taking off these jars, and removing the bees, 

 all the eggs that happened to be there had a fair chance. 

 Many writers finding the combs to be undisturbed when 

 left on the hive tiU cold weather, recommend that, as the 



