THE BEE-MOTH. 471 
It is hardly necessary, after the preceding remarks, to 
say much upon the various contrivances to which some re- 
sorted as a safeguard against the bee-moth. The idea that 
gauze-wire doors, to be shut at dusk and opened again at 
morning, can exclude the moth, will not weigh much with 
those who have seen them on the wing, in dull weather, long 
before the bees have ceased their work. Even if they could 
be excluded by such a contrivance, it would require, on the 
part of those using it, a regularity almost akin to that of 
the heavenly bodies. 
An ingenious device has been invented for dispensing 
with such close supervision, by governing the entrances of 
all the hives by a long lever-like hen-roost, so that they 
might be regularly closed by the crowing and cackling tribe 
when they go to rest at night, and opened again when they 
fly from their perch to greet the merry morn. Alas! that 
so much skill should have been allin vain! Some chickens 
are sleepy, and wish to retire before the bees have com- 
pleted their work, while others, from ill-health or laziness, 
have no taste for early rising, and sit moping on their 
roost, long after the cheerful sun has purpled the glowing 
East. Even if this device could entirely exclude the moth, 
it could not save a colony which has lost its queen. The 
truth is, that such contrivances are equivalent to the lock 
put upon the stable door after the horse has been stolen ; or, 
to attempts to banish the chill of death by warm covering, 
or artificial heat. 
The prudent bee-keeper, remembering that ‘‘ prevention 
is better than cure,’’ will take pains to destroy the larve of 
(especially black bees) however strong or healthy, has some of these enemies 
lurking about its premises. 
The late Mr. M. Quinby, of New York, whose common-sense treatise 
on Bee-keeping, lately revised by his son-in-law, L. C. Root, will richly repay 
perusal, is of opinion that some of the imperfect bees carried out of the hive 
in the Spring, have been destroyed by the worms, which have made their way 
through the comb. 
