Bees have few enemies more formidable than wasps. The most effectual method of checking their invasion of hives, is to have as narrow an entrance as the bees can do with. If a stock be not very weak in numbers, the bees will be well able to guard a small aperture, and can repel the attacks of those insidious and merciless robbers. On this account, the entrance to our No. 5 hive as described at page 31, may be used. The bee-keeper is interested in preventing the increase of wasps; it is, therefore, a good practice for him to set a price on queen wasps in the spring, the death of one of them at that time being equivalent to the destruction of a whole nest. Should nests be found in the neighbourhood of an apiary, their annihilation must be accomplished either by blowing them up with gunpowder, an operation well understood by most country lads; or any other effectual method. The late Mr. Payne recommended that a small quantity of gas tar should be put into the mouth of a wasp's nest, and if then covered with earth, the total destruction of the wasps will be accomplished without further trouble. But to use blazing straw for the purpose is always dangerous in country districts. We have lately heard of a very ingenious and successful mode of entrapping and killing wasps. Place some sugar or strongly sweetened compound on the ground in a garden, and place over it a square hand glass, wedged up an inch or so all round. On this glass, which should have an opening at the apex, lodge another, but a sound one. The wasps, attracted by the sweets, will soon crowd under the lower glass, and when they have well feasted, will ascend into the upper one; there, between the two, they soon become scorched and perish by the heat of the sun shining on the outer glass. The season of 1864 was most productive for the increase of these prime pests of the apiary, and many hives have severely suffered by their depredations. When once wasps in any number have gained an entrance into a hive, the bees can seldom eject them, and the invaders generally remain until they have freely regaled themselves from the luscious store. They not only consume the honey, but cause a good deal of worry to the legitimate inhabitants of the hive, as well as killing the foremost defenders of it. Wasps being of so much superior strength, it requires, at least, three bees to master one of them.