THE BEE-MOTH. 471 



It is hardly necessary, after tlie preceding remarlts, to 

 say mucli upon tlie various contrivances to wliicli some re- 

 sorted as a safeguard against the bee-moth. The idea that 

 gauze-wire doors, to be shut at duslc 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 thej^ 

 fly from their perch to greet the merry morn. Alas ! that 

 so much skill should have been all in 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 larvae of 



(especially black bees) boweTer strong or bealthy, 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. Boot, 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 . 



