ve
known them to cut away their combs from four to eight or ten inches to re
move this silken shroud, and have known them to cut and drag out their
only remaining Queen before she was transformed to the perfect fly, which
occasioned the entire loss of the whole colony.

Repeated experiments have demonstrated the fact, that placing bees on the
ground, or high in the air, is no security against the moths. I have lost
some of my best stocks by placing them on the ground, when those on the
bench were not injured by them. I have made a groove in the bottom board,
much wider than the thickness of the boards to the hive, and filled the
same with loam: I then placed the hive on the same, in such a manner as to
prevent any crack or vacancy for the worms; and yet in raising the hive
four weeks afterwards, I found them apparently full grown all around the
hive in the dirt. I have found them very plenty in a tree ninety feet from
the ground.

The best method, in common practice, to prevent the depredations of the
moth, is, to suspend the bottom board so far below the lower edge of the
hive as to give the bees free entrance and egress all around the same
during the moth season, or to raise the common hive, by placing under it
little blocks at each corner, which produces nearly the same effect. But I
know of but one rule, which is an infallible one, to prevent their
depredations, and that is this: keep the combs well guarded by bees. See
Rule 10.

Large hives, that never swarm, are never destroyed by the moth, unless
they lose their Queen, melt down, or meet with some casualty, out of the
ordinary course of managing them. They are not often in the least annoyed
by them, unless there are bad joints, cracks, or shakes, so as to afford
some lurking places for the worms. The reason for their prosperous
condition is obvious. The stock of bees are so numerous that their combs
are all kept well guarded during the moth season, so that no miller can
enter and deposit her eggs.

Hives made so small as to swarm, are liable to reduce their colonies so
small as to leave combs unguarded, especially when they swarm three or
four times the same season. All swarms, after the first, sally forth to
avoid the battle of the Queens; constantly making a greater draft, in
proportion to the number left, until the combs are partly exposed, which
gives the miller free access to their edges.--The seeds of rapine and
plunder are thus quickly sown, and soon v