156 BEE-FARMING. 



they attempted an entrance. In the case of mice it is 

 doubtful if they would escape with their lives. In the 

 winter, however, matters are reversed, and mice especially 

 will often, if the bees happen to be on a low bee-bench, 

 find a shelter in the hive, where they find such snug warm 

 quarters. They then speedily set to work, after having 

 eaten a hole in the combs sufficiently large to construct 

 a nest of hay or straw. Rats cannot effect an entrance 

 through the mouth of the hive, but when reduced to 

 straits in cold weather, if they can meet with old straw 

 sleeps, they are not long in making an entrance for them- 

 selves. There is this difference betwixt mice and rats, 

 when regarded as bee-enemies : mice eat the bees. Judg- 

 ing of a few cases in my personal experience, they must 

 consume a large quantity, from the number of heads and 

 wings found on and around the stand. Rats on the con- 

 trary take little notice of the bees, but consume the 

 honey. In a few days a single rat will eat up the whole 

 of the winter store. Destroy them if you can, the sooner 

 the better, and thus save your bees from this plague. 

 Darwin makes it out very satisfactorily that if the cats 

 increase mice must as a result decrease, and humble-bees 

 rapidly increase ; as a consequence, the favourite pansy of 

 our gardens will produce an abundant crop of fertile seeds. 

 The pansy or heartease cannot be fertilised without insect 

 agency. Its fertilization is mostly performed by humble- 

 bees. The greatest enemy the humble-bees perhaps have 

 to contend against is mice. If cats are scarce, mice, of 

 course, increase, and thus you must in a short time, unless 

 the balance of nature is kept up, lose the much-loved 

 pansy. Mice are doubly hateful to the bees ; they create 

 a most disagreeable stench where they find a lodging, so 

 much so that the bees on the return of spring will not be 

 long in seeking a new home, and in abandoning the old 

 tenement to the mice. Sometimes the losses by this 



