therefore necessary to ask permission to search the gardens of the houses opposite. From one of these we observed, on looking through the hedge, that the inhabitants of the next house were on the _qui vive_. On enquiring whether they had seen a colony of bees, the wary old dame replied that she "had no bees but her own," and added that "they were very much excited." Having asked permission to go through the hedge to look at her bees, we soon discovered our Ligurians on the top of the old lady's bee-house. There was no difficulty in identifying our own bees; their yellow rings were as good as a private mark. Quickly hiving the swarm, we took them home, and replaced them in the hive they had quitted. It was almost destitute of honey; but by liberal feeding, and lessening the entrance so that only one bee at a time could find ingress or egress, we succeeded in inducing them to rest in their old home. Thus nearly half a day's exertion was needed to save a fine colony, which would otherwise have been utterly lost by the power of the relentless wasps. Much watchfulness is needed to prevent the loss of swarms, and the foregoing incident may serve to suggest the necessity of having hives so located as to be constantly within view, either from the dining room, or of those whose duties oblige them to be near the apiary. If we had not happened to be at hand at the moment this colony started, it would have been irretrievably lost to us. Many swarms and colonies are lost simply because the departure takes place without any one witnessing it. Let us hope that runaway bees may always fall into the hands of those who are as capable of taking care of them as our neighbours appeared to be on the occasion we have described. Another formidable enemy of bees are the moths. These insects are creatures of the night, as the bees of the day, and they make their way into the hives under cover of darkness, in spite of the bee-sentinels. They deposit their eggs in any crevices in or near the hive that they can find. There the warmth of the hive or of the sheltered situation, causes the eggs speedily to hatch, and then the maggots soon work their way to the comb and larvæ food, which they greedily devour, thereby often bringing about the gradual but certain destruction of the whole community of bees. The best way of keeping moths outside the hives is to lessen the entrance, as before alluded to. Also, in the early spring, the hives should be lifted from their floorboards, which must then be made thoroughly clean, and all crevices and corners about the hive and stand should be scraped, so as to get rid of all eggs of moths and other insects before the warm weather hatches them or enables them to do mischief. The bee-moth is not so troublesome in England as it is in America and some parts of Germany; but still its encroachments should be carefully guarded against in this country, for if not, it may easily increase to a very serious extent. DRAINING HONEY FROM THE COMBS.