2i8 ENEMIES OF BEES. 



lional supply of food. Its augmented size exposing it to 

 attacks from surrounding foes, the wary insect fortifies iis 

 new abode with additional strength and thickness, by blend- 

 ing with the filaments of its silken covering, a mixture of 

 wax and its own excrement, for the external barrier of a 

 new gallery, the interior and partitions of which are lined 

 with a smooth surface of white silk, which admits the occa- 

 sional movements of the insect, without injury to its deli- 

 cate (?) texture. In performing these operations, the insect 

 might be expected to meet with opposition from the bees, 

 and to be gradually rendered more assailable as it advanced 

 in age. It never, however, exposes any part but its head 

 and neck, both of which are covered with stout helmets or 

 scales impenetrable to the sting of a bee, as is the composi- 

 tion of the galleries that surround it." As soon as it has 

 reached its full growth, it seeks in the manner before de- 

 scribed, a secure place for undergoing its changes into a 

 winged insect. 



Before describing howl protect my hives from this deadly 

 pest, I shall first show why the bee-moth has so wonderfully 

 increased in numbers in this country, and how the use of 

 patent hives has so powerfully contributed to encourage its 

 ravages. It ought to be borne in mind that our climate is 

 altogether more propitious to its rapid increase, than that of 

 Great Britain. Our intensely hot summers develop insect 

 life most rapidly and powerfully, and those parts of our 

 country where the heat is most protracted and intense, have, 

 as a general thing, suffered most from the devastations of 

 the bee-moth. 



The honey bee is not a native of the American continent, 

 but was brought here by colonists from Great Britain, and 

 was called by the Indians, the white man's fly. Longfellow, 

 in his " Song of Hiawatha," in describing the advent of the 



