458 ENEMIES OF BEES. 
CHAPTER XIX. 
Enemirs OF BEES. 
802. THe Bee-Moth (Tinea melloneila) is mentioned by 
Aristotle, Virgil, Columella and other ancient authors, as 
one of the most formidable enemies of the honey-bee. Even 
in the first part of this century, the bee-writers, almost 
without exception, regarded it as the plague of their Apia- 
ties, 
Fig. 188, 
BEE-MOTH. 
Eggs, natural size and magnified, larva and moths. 
Swammerdam speaks of two species of the bee-moth 
(called in his time the ‘‘ bee-wolf’’), one much larger than 
the other. Linnzeus and Réaumur also describe two kinds 
— Tinea cereana and Tinea mellonella.* Most writers sup- 
posed the former to be the male, and the latter the female 
of the same species. The following description is abridged 
from Dr. Harris’ Report on the Insects of Massachusetts: 
S03. “Very few of the Tinee exceed or even equal it in size. 
In its adult state it is a winged moth, or miller, measuring, from 
the head to the tip of the closed wings, from five-eighths to three- 
quarters of an inch in length, and its wings expand from one 
inch and one-tenth to one inch and four-tenths. he fore-wings 
*Scientists do not agree exactly as to these species, nor their names, calling 
them, galleria cereana, galleria alvearia, tinea cerelia, &c. 
