MANUAL, &c.
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RULE I.
ON THE CONSTRUCTION OF A BEE-HIVE.
A bee-hive should be made of sound boards, free from shakes and cracks; it should also be planed smooth, inside and out, made in a workmanlike manner, and painted on its outside.
REMARKS.
That a bee-hive should be made perfect, so as to exclude light and air, is obvious from the fact, that the bees will finish what the workman has neglected, by plastering up all such cracks and crevices, or bad joints, as are left open by the joiner. The substance they use for this purpose is neither honey nor wax, but a kind of glue or cement of their own manufacturing, and is used by the bees to fill up all imperfect joints and exclude all light and air. This cement or glue is very congenial to the growth of the moth in the first stages of its existence.
The moth miller enters the hive, generally, in the night—makes an incision into the glue or cement with her sting, and leaves her eggs deposited in the glue, where it remains secure from the bees; it being guarded by the timber on its sides. Thus, while a maggot, (larva) the moth uses the cement for food until it arrives so far towards a state of maturity as to be able to spin a web, which is more fully explained in remarks on Rule 10.