Scenes of industry; displayed in the bee-hive and the ant-hill: with a brief description of the wonders of the insect world

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1830 edition. Excerpt: ... bees, so strong, so active, and so clever as they are, have not found some means of extirpating these troublesome moths." "I have not yet," said I, "told you all they have to suffer from them. There is one species--Tinea mellonella, who make frequent attacks upon the hive, and try to force themselves into it. "The bees, when they expect such an attack, place sentinels about the entrance of.the hive. I have watched them by moonlight, pacing about with their antennae stretched, and moving from right to left. I have seen the moths flutter about the entrance; and, apparently aware of the blindness of the bees, attempt to glide in between the sentinels, and to escape the touch of their antennae.' "The bees on guard in the night utter a low hum; but if their antennae touch one of these moths, or any other enemy, the hum becomes louder; a commotion is raised, and the moth is quickly attacked by a body of workers from within. "The death's-head hawk moth is another enemy, from whose attacks they guard themselves in a very different manner. "In the autumn, when their storehouses are full, a band of these death1s-heads will contrive to get into the hive during the night, when the bees cannot see them. A great tumult takes place; a battle follows; and, the next morning, the ground about the hive is strewed with the dead bodies of bees; the hive has been robbed of all its honey, and the bees never return to it. "To prevent these disastrous incursions of the death's-head moths, I generally have the door-way of my hives so narrow as only to admit a single bee at a time. But the bees themselves will sometimes fortify their hives. They build a thick wall, which resembles a regular fortification, with towers...