296 RAVAGES OP THE SPIDER. 



All spider webs should be carefully removed from the 

 vicinity of the apiary ; and in this respect, the bee-master 

 cannot be too vigilant in the months of August and Sep- 

 tember, when the spiders abound, and construct their webs in 

 every quarter. It is believed by some persons that the size 

 and weight of the bee will carry him through the web, but 

 in tbis opinion they will find themselves deceived. It may 

 happen in isolated cases; but we have too often witnessed 

 the corpse of a bee in the web of the spider, to doubt for 

 a moment the great evil, which the spider commits in the 

 vicinity of an apiary. We, in general, do not satisfy ourselves 

 with brushing away the web, but we also brush away the 

 cause of it, by effecting the death of the spider; for the 

 removal of the web is but a temporary remedy, as perhaps 

 before six hours are elapsed, another will be found at no 

 great distance from the former one. 



It is not, however, the common garden spider, which 

 insinuates itself into the hives, but that particular species, 

 which spins its web in the corners of our rooms. Towards 

 the close of autumn, they steal into the hives, deposit their 

 eggs between the bands of straw; and thus, at the com- 

 mencement of the season, the eggs are hatched by the 

 increased temperature of the hive, and the bees become 

 subject to a perpetual and irremediable annoyance. It is 

 on this and similar circumstances that our objection to the 

 common cottage hive, and indeed to all those, the make of 

 which prohibits the examination of the upper part of the 

 combs, is founded. The proprietor, from the make of the 

 hive, has no means of knowing that the spider or any other 

 vermin have made their lodgement in the hive, and therefore, 

 with the ignorance of the existing evil, the gradual decline 

 and ultimate loss of the hive become a problem, which he 

 cannot solve ; and after divining a number of causes, the 

 real one is perhaps the very last that he will be disposed 

 to fix upon or acknowledge. As long as the common straw 



