When honey is unprotected by bees, or boxes of it placed where they can have access, as a natural consequence, they will carry off some; but it is easily secured.
Spiders are a source of considerable annoyance to the apiarian, as well as to the bees; not so much on account of the number of bees consumed, as their habit of spinning a web about the hive, that will occasionally take a moth, and will probably entangle fifty bees the whilst. They are either in fear of the bees, or they are not relished as food; particularly, as a bee caught in the morning is frequently untouched during the day. This web is often exactly before the entrance, entangling the bees as they go out and return; irritating and hindering them considerably. They often escape after repeated struggles. I have removed a web from the same place every morning, for a week, that was renewed at night with astonishing perseverance! I can generally look out his hiding-place, which is in some corner near by, and dispatch him. His redeeming qualities are few, and are more than balanced by the evil, as far as I have discovered. Their sagacity in some instances will find a place of concealment not easily discovered. At the approach of cold weather, the box or chamber of the hive being a little warmer than other places, will attract a great many there to deposit their eggs. Little piles of webbing or silk may be seen attached to the top of the hive, or sides of boxes. These contain eggs for the next year's brood. This is the time to destroy them and save trouble for the future.
If we combine into one phalanx all the depredators yet named, and compare their ability for mischief with the wax moth, we shall find their powers of destruction but a small item! Of the moth itself we would have nothing to fear were it not for her progeny, that consist of a hundred or a thousand vile worms, whose food is principally wax or comb.