THE BEE-MOTH. 469 
In the Ohio Cultivator for 1849, page 185, Micajah T. 
Johnson says:— ‘‘ One thing is certain— if bees, from any 
cause, should lose their queen, and not have the means in 
their power of raising another, the miller and the worms 
soon take possession. I believe no hive is destroyed by worms 
while an efficient queen remains in it.’’ 
This seems to be the earliest published notice of this im- 
portant fact by any American observer. 
_It is certain that a queenless hive seldom maintains a 
guard at the entrance after night, and does not fill the air 
with the pleasant voice of happy industry. Even to our 
dull ears, the difference between the hum of a prosperous 
hive and the unhappy note of a despairing one is often 
sufficiently obvious; may it not be even more so to the 
acute senses of the provident mother-moth? 
Her unerring sagacity resembles the instinct by which 
birds that prey upon carrion, single out from the herd a 
diseased animal, hovering over its head with their dismal 
croakings, or sitting in ill-omened flocks on the surround- 
ing trees, watching it as its life ebbs away, and snapping 
their blood-thirsty beaks, impatient to tear out its eyes, 
just glazing in death, and banquet on its flesh, still warm 
with the blood of life. Let any fatal accident befall an 
animal, and how soon will you see them,— 
“ First a speck and then a Vulture,” 
speeding, from all quarters of the heavens, on their eager 
flight to their destined prey, when only a short time before 
not one could be perceived. 
When a colony becomes hopelessly queenless, even should 
the bees retain their wonted zeal in gathering stores and 
defending themselves against the moth, they must as cer- 
tainly perish as a carcass must decay, even if it is not 
assailed by filthy flies and ravenous worms. Occasion- 
ally, after the death of the bees, large stores of honey are 
