20 MISCELLANEOUS PAPEES ON APICULTURE. 
As long as the colony is strong the wax moths can do no damage, 
but as the bees decrease in number the combs offer a foothold to one or 
other of the moths and within a very short time the whole hive is one 
mass of wax moth tunnels, larval excreta, and cocoons. The combs 
are completely destroyed and nothing remains but the web and a mass 
of debris on the hive bottoms. If the moth larvae actually ate the 
infected material, they would serve to remove the infection where the 
bee keeper is too careless to do so — as is too frequently the case. 
The two wax moths differ greatly in their habits in some respects, 
but it is not the purpose of this paper to discuss these points. The 
large wax moth (Galleria mellonella L.) is the most widely dis- 
tributed and is found in practically every part of the United States, 
and probably wherever the honey bee is now kept. The lesser wax 
moth (Ackroia grisella Fab.), on the other hand, is not so widely dis- 
tributed, but it is known to exist in various localities in this country. 
WORK OF THE LARGE WAX MOTH. 
{Galleria mellonella L.) 
Plate I is from a photograph of a comb, infected with American foul 
brood, on which larva? of the large wax moth were placed. The comb 
was placed in a box to exclude light and was laid flat on a piece of 
paper. The larva? at first worked on the under side of the comb, but 
gradually they got to the upper surface. It will be noticed that in 
one part of the comb the lower side walls of the cells remain intact; 
here the dried-down scales of American foul brood were thickest, and 
evidently this was the center of the brood during the time of infection. 
The remainder of the area formerly occupied by comb is nothing 
but debris, with a few scales scattered here and there. Evidently 
only where scales are thick do they hold together enough to stand 
upright. To show how the scales stand up, the web was removed 
from the surface. The background of the photograph is merely a 
piece of paper. 
Plate II is a photograph of a rough box used for a hive during 
some experiments in producing American foul brood by the feeding 
of pure cultures of Bacillus larvce. a The five frames of this small 
hive contained thousands of the dried-down scales so characteristic 
of this disease. The box was put away in a closet and the large wax 
moth got into it, with the result that all the combs were completely 
destroyed. The webs and empty frames were removed for this photo- 
graph. The black mass in the bottom of the box is composed of 
a Circular No. 94. Bureau of Entomology, entitled. "The Cause of American 
Foul Brood," by Dr. G. F. White. Issued July 29. 1907. 
