248 
THE HIVE AND HONEY-BEE. 
with such close supervision, by governing the entrances 
of all the hives by a long lever-like hen-roost, so that 
they may be regularly closed by the crowing and cack¬ 
ling tribe when they go to bed at night, and opened 
again when they fly from their perch to greet the merry 
morn. Alas! that so much skill should be all in vain! 
Some chickens are sleepy, and wish to retire before the 
bees have completed their work, while others, from 
ill-health or laziness, have no taste for early rising, and sit 
moping on their roost, long after the cheerful sun has 
purpled the glowing east. Even if this device could 
entirely exclude the moth, it could not save a colony 
which has lost its queen. The truth is, that most of the 
contrivances on which we arc instructed to rely, are 
equivalent to the lock put upon the stable door after the 
horse has been stolen; or, to attempts to banish the chill 
of death by warm covering, or artificial heat. 
Let me not be understood as asserting that there are 
no means of protecting the common hives from the 
ravages of the bee-moth. If bee-keepers will be careful 
to place their hives where the young queens are not in 
danger of being lost (p. 214), they will lose comparatively 
few of their colonies. The knowledge of this fact will 
enable the Apiarian to contend successfully against the 
moth, let him use what hive he will. He will, undoubt¬ 
edly, lose many colonies which have become queenless, 
from other causes than the close proximity of their hives, 
and which might be easily saved in movable comb-hives; 
but his losses will not be of such a wholesale character as 
utterly to dishearten him in his attempts to keep bees. 
The prudent bee-keeper, remembering that “ prevention 
is better than cure,” will take unwearied pains to destroy, 
as early in the season as he can, the larva; of the moth. 
The destruction of a single female worm may thus be 
