t
with unerring certainty to the power, wisdom and goodness, of Him who
made it!

If there is reason to apprehend that the combs which are not occupied
with brood, contain any of the eggs of the moth, these combs may be
removed, and thoroughly smoked with the fumes of burning sulphur; and
then, in a few days, after they have been exposed to the fresh air, they
may be returned to the hive. I hope I may be pardoned for feeling not
the slightest pity for the unfortunate progeny of the moth, thus
unceremoniously destroyed.

Bees, as is well known to every experienced bee-keeper, frequently swarm
so often as to expose themselves to great danger of being destroyed by
the moth. After the departure of the after-swarms, the parent colony
often contains too few bees to cover and protect their combs from the
insidious attacks of their wily enemy. As a number of weeks must elapse
before the brood of the young queen is mature, the colony, for a
considerable time, at the season when the moths are very numerous, are
constantly diminishing in numbers, and before they can begin to
replenish the exhausted hive, the destroyer has made a fatal lodgment.

In my hives, such calamities are easily prevented. If artificial
increase is relied upon for the multiplication of colonies, it can be so
conducted as to give the moth next to no chance to fortify itself in the
hive. No colony is ever allowed to have more room than it needs, or more
combs than it can cover and protect; and the entrance to the hive may be
contracted, if necessary, so that only a single bee can go in and out,
at a time, and yet the bees will have, from the ventilators, as much air
as they require.

If natural swarming is allowed, after-swarms may be prevented from
issuing, by cutting out all the queen cells but one, soon after the
first swarm leaves the hive; or if it is desired to have as fast an
increase of stocks, as can possibly be obtained from natural swarming,
then instead of leaving the combs in the parent hive to be attacked by
the moth, a certain portion of them may be taken out, when swarming is
over, and given to the second and third swarms, so as to aid in building
them up into strong stocks.

But I have not yet spoken of the most fruitful cause of the desolating
ravages of the bee-moth. If a colony has _lost its queen_, and this loss
cannot be supplied, it must, as a matter of course, fall a sacrifice to
the bee-moth: and I do not hesitate to assert that