SECURING HONEY FROM THE MOTH. 183 
The reader would like to know how these worms 
came in the jars, when, to all appearance, it was a phy- 
sical impossibility. I would like to tell positively, but 
cannot. But I will guess, if you will allow it. I will 
first premise, that I do not suppose they are generated 
spontaneously ! Their being found there, then, would 
indicate some agent or means not readily perceived. 
A SOLUTION OFFERED. 
The hypothesis that I offer is original and new, and 
therefore open for criticism; if there is a better way to 
account for the mystery, I would be glad to know it. 
From the first of June till late in the fall, the moth 
may be found around our hives, active at night, but 
still in the day. The only object probably is to find 
a suitable place to deposit its eggs, that the young may 
have food ; if no proper and convenient place is found, 
why, I suppose it will take up with such as it can find; 
their eggs must be deposited somewhere, it may be in 
the cracks in the hive, in the dust at the bottom, or 
outside, as near the entrance as they dare approach. 
The bees running over them may get one or more of 
these eggs attached to their feet or bodies, and carry 
it among the combs, where it may be left to hatch. It 
is not at all probable that the moth ever passed 
through the hive among the bees, to deposit her eggs 
in the jars before mentioned. Had these jars been left 
on the hive, not a worm would have ever defaced a 
comb ; because, when the bees are numerous, each 
worm as soon as it commences its work of destruction 
will be removed, that is, when it works on the surface, 
