130 NATURAL ENEMIES 



Wasps, as I said before, will attack bees in most 

 determined fashion, even to the extent of slaugh- 

 tering the whole colony and carrying away all its 

 stores. This does not happen, as a rule, unless 

 the hive happens to be weak in numbers, but even 

 strong hives suffer considerably from the attacks of 

 wasps. A favourite trick of the yellow-banded 

 looter is to hang round a hive and wait till 

 some unlucky bee, more heavily laden than most, 

 is unable to alight in the immediate vicinity of 

 the entrance — perhaps falls on the ground. Upon 

 its back the wasp immediately pounces, and too 

 surprised to make any effective resistance, the 

 victim is cut in half at the waist, the wasp bearing 

 off in triumph the abdominal part containing the 

 nectar only just brought home by the poor bee. 



In the summer-time ants, too, are often to be 

 seen around and in hives, from whence they no 

 doubt carry away a good store of sweets. The 

 bees do not, so far as I have seen, take much notice 

 of them. They generally enter by odd crevices in 

 the hive body, rather than the entrance itself, and 

 the bees seem to be under the delusion that a hole 

 not big enough for them to get out by will not 

 admit anything big enough to do them harm. 

 May I break the rule I laid down for myself in 

 the beginning, to ask whether there are no 

 parallels to this in the human community? 



Earwigs seem very fond of honey, and one turns 

 them out in scores during the summer. It is 



