422 TRANSACTIONS LIVERPOOL BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



the Continent ; 'but onr native social species, the 

 fierce hawk-like hornet and the common wasp, 

 attack and carry off the honey bee as food for 

 their young. The writer has particularly 

 observed this to be the case in years when wasps 

 are specially abundant and food possibly scarcer ; 

 in other seasons wasps only attack the bees when 

 weak. No species of Styloj^s seems to infest A. 

 mellifica, but the young larvse of the Coleopterous 

 Meloe, previously noted in connection with 

 Andrena, sometimes do serious harm by violently 

 irritating the worker bees to which they attach 

 themselves. 



Inside the hives no inquiline bees appropriate 

 the fruits of the labours of their hosts, as is the 

 case with most wild bees ; but the honey stored 

 there is at times plundered by many enemies 

 — by mice of various kinds, by robber bees from 

 neighbouring hives, by wasps, occasionally by 

 the large Lepidopteron A. atrojyos, by certain 

 Coleoptera, and by ants. The combs are some- 

 times sadly damaged by the larvae of two species 

 of Lepidoptera, which live upon the wax, viz., 

 the large Crambite, Galleria melonella, Linn., 

 and the smaller Achrcea grisella, Fab. ; but these 

 pests, as well as most of the enemies to bees pre- 

 viously noted, are much less in evidence now 

 than in the days when straw skeps were common 

 in the district. Other occasional parasites in the 

 hive are a small Dipteron, Braula cceca, imported 

 with foreign " queens," and an Acarus. But of 

 course the greatest enemy of all to the Apiarist is 

 the dread Bacillus that causes what is known as 

 " foul brood " in the combs. 



