Insects, such as dragon-flies, ants, spiders, etc., come in for their share of the bees: and mice will eat them when food is scarce. And, lastly, the bee-moth (or wax-moth it should be called) comes then and eats up the comb which they built to live, store honey, and rear the young in, but they will not destroy the comb in strong colonies with prolific queens; for the bees will keep them from making progress in their comb. The old or flying moths may be seen about the hives during warm weather, es pecially in summer and fall, depositing their eggs in cracks and crevices about the hives and on the comb too at every opportunity; for they can dart about over the comb where the bees are scattering over it, and keep out of the way in places where the bees can not go, and deposit their eggs all through the hives; but if the colonies are strong, and kept so, the bees will be constantly passing over the comb, and the interior of the hives, removing these eggs or the tiny moths should any of them hatch; but if there are any cracks in the interior of the hives large enough for them to develop in they will do so, especially about the bottoms, where the lodgments may collect, for they 'will be food to them, and the cracks will be a place of refuge, and the moths will develop in them. Should any colonies become queenless, and remain so for a few weeks, there being no bees raised, and the old ones dying out fast, soon they will be too weak to crawl constantly over their comb, and soon it is unoccupied; and the moths, old and young, are present, and at once begin their destructive work by eating and webbing their way through the comb and rearing their young in great numbers, and soon they will completely destroy the colony; for the combs will be nothing more than a mass of webbs and large fat moths. As seen elsewhere in this book, as soon as a colony of bees loses its queen it is on the road to destruction until it is supplied with another queen; and even then it will be lost if she is not given to the colony in time, or the comb all removed and given to strong colonies, except just enough for them to occupy well. So it will be seen that the moth only hastens the destruction, for ruin is already upon them, and if a colony of bees runs short of stores it will, in like manner, go to destruction because no small amount of honey is consumed in rearing young bees; and if they haven't it they can not raise them; and as, the old ones are fast dying the comb will soon become unoccupied around on the outside of the brood-nest, when the moth will take it, and soon the young queen and her bees will be lost because there was no honey in the field which they could gather, nor any in the hive, or it was not supplied with food to raise young 'bees to keep the hive populated. All colonies are subject to the moth at any time during warm weather, but they can not destroy a single colony in all the South unless the keeper of the bees neglects the duty he owes to his bees. Thousands of colonies are lost in the South every year in this way, and this great loss of bees is laid to the bee-moth when they have done only a very small part of it. Let me advise right here, dear reader, that the cultivation of bees is the most reasonable work that I have any knowledge of. It is necessary and advantageous to them; they soon take advantage of the proper care they receive, and adhere to it as long as they can. Take a colony of bees that, for some cause beyond its power, has run short of stores, with no honey anywhere that they can gather, and on the way to destruction, will cease rearing brood except, perhaps, a very small batch, and it scrimps along, thinking perhaps that something will happen for its betterment. Now feed them and note results. They will at once. begin to feed their small, dried-up, half-dead queen, and soon she will be large, and her abdomen extend to its fullestcapacity with fertile eggs which are being deposited in the cells over the comb in great numbers, and young bees are soon seen in all stages of development, the colony in a prosperous condition again, and the moth (the bees' ever present enemy) is kept off, and destruction is delayed. The more prolific varieties of bees will keep their comb rid of moth better and longer than the less prolific varieties.