576 
BEES AND BEE-KEEPING. 
in Britain, are but little to be feared. Late in the 
summer evening, the moth may occasionally be seen 
flitting at the hive door, to gain access to the combs, 
on which to lay her eggs ; but if the population be 
at all numerous, the guards give her but a small 
chance of effecting an entrance. Should she succeed, 
the eggs deposited on the combs will be at once 
ejected, unless the bees are so sparse as to leave 
them unvisited. Eggs may possibly hatch if left in 
unreachable corners, or on the debris collecting from 
wax plates dropped during comb-building and sealing; 
but here the little grubs only gain an existence by 
gathering up the fragments, that nothing be lost, and 
only where a colony is miserably weak, or has lost 
heart through hopeless queenlessness, can they work 
mischief among the comb. Here, if suffered to 
remain, they worm their way through the midrib, 
constructing a silky tunnel, on the walls of which 
will be found their dejectamenta, resembling grains 
of gunpowder, and by degrees the comb is utterly 
ruined ; comb, therefore, in store may be destroyed by 
their ravages. The egg is but y^in. in diameter, and 
so likely to escape detection. Should the character- 
istic flannelly line show itself, expose the whole to the 
fumes of burning sulphur, or fumigate thus as a pre- 
caution. The sulphurous acid produced quickly gives 
the quietus to the little tormentors. No further atten- 
tion will be necessary, if we place the combs out of 
the reach of the moth, or if the season of her flight has 
closed, as eggs also are, at the same time, destroyed. 
The death’s-head moth (Achero?itia Atropos) is an 
enemy of bees ; but the statement that she can swallow 
