264 ENEMIES OF BEES. 



when they have stood side by side with feeble colonies, 

 which, being in possession of a queen, have been left un- 

 touched I 



That the common hives furnish no sure remedy for the loss 

 of the queen, is well known : indeed, the owner cannot, in 

 many cases, be sure that his bees are queenless, until their 

 destruction is certain, while not unfrequently, after keeping 

 bees for many years, he does not even believe that there is 

 such a thing as a queen bee ! In the Chapter on the Loss of 

 the Queen, I shall show how this loss may be ascertained, and 

 ordinarily remedied, and thus the colony be protected from 

 that calamity, which, more than all others, exposes them to 

 destruction. 



When a colony has become hopelessly queenless, then, 

 moth or no moth, its destruction is certain. Even if the 

 bees retained their wonted industry in gathering stores, and 

 their usual energy in defending themselves against their 

 enemies, their ruin could only be delayed, for a short time. 

 In a few months, they would all die a natural death, and 

 there being none to replace them, the hive would be utterly 

 depopulated. Occasionally, such instances occur, where the 

 bees have all died, and large stores of honey have been found 

 untouched in their hives. This, however, but seldom hap- 

 pens : for they rarely escape from the assaults of other colo- 

 nies, even if after the death of their queen, they do not fall a 

 prey to the bee-moth. A motherless hive is almost always as- 

 saulted by stronger slocks, which seem to have an instinctive 

 knowledge of its orphanage, and hasten at once, to take pos- 

 session of its spoils. If it escape the Scylla of these pitiless 

 plunderers, it is soon dashed upon a more merciless Charyb- 

 dis, when the miscreant moths have ascertained its destitu- 

 tion. Every year, large numbers of hives are bereft of 

 their queen, most of which are either robbed by other bees, 



