pondingly
referred to, than those of any other enemy. Various contrivances have
been announced, but none have proved efficacious to any full extent, and
we are compelled to say that there really is no security, except in a
very full, healthy and vigorous stock of bees, and in a very close and
well made hive, the door of which is of such dimensions of length and
height, that the nightly guards can effectually protect it. Not too long
a door, nor too high. If too long, the bees cannot easily guard it, and
if too high, the moth will get in over the heads of the guards. If the
guards catch one of them, her life is not worth insuring. But if the
moths, in any numbers, effect a lodgment in the hive, then the hive is
not worth insuring. They immediately commence laying their eggs, from
which comes, in a few days, a brownish white caterpillar, which encloses
itself, all but its head, in a silken cocoon. This head, covered with an
impenetrable coat of scaly mail, which bids defiance to the bees, is
thrust forward, just outside of the silken enclosure, and the gluttonous
pest eats all before it, wax, pollen, and exuviae, until ruin to the
stock is inevitable. As says the Prophet Joel, speaking of the ravages
of the locust, "the land is as the garden of Eden before them, and
behind them a desolate wilderness." Look out, brethren, bee lovers, and
have your hives of the best unshaky, unknotty stock, with close fitting
joints, and well covered with three or four coats of paint. He who shall
be successful in devising the means of ridding the bee world of this
destructive and merciless pest, will richly deserve to be crowned "King
Bee," in perpetuity, to be entitled to a never-fading wreath of budding
honey flowers, from sweetly breathing fields, all murmuring with bees,
to be privileged to use, during his natural life, "night tapers from
their waxen thighs," best wax candles, (two to the pound!) to have an
annual offering from every bee-master, of ten pounds each, of very best
virgin honey, and to a body guard, for protection against all foes, of
thrice ten thousand workers, all armed and equipped, as Nature's law
directs. Who shall have these high honors?"

It might seem highly presumptuous for me, at this early date, to lay
claim to them, but I beg leave to enroll myself among the list of
honorable candidates, and I cheerfully submit my pretensions to the
suffrages of all intelligent keepers of bees.

In the chapter on Requisites,