d, but with the modern hive its ravages may be readily detected.

[Illustration: 35. Meloe.]

The Oil beetle, Meloe angusticollis (Fig. 35, male, differing from the
female by having the antennae as if twisted into a knot; Fig. 36, the
active larva found on the body of the bee), is a large dark blue insect
found crawling in the grass in the vicinity of the nests of Andrena,
Halictus, and other wild bees in May, and again in August and
September. The eggs are laid in a mass covered with earth at the root
of some plant. During April and early in May, when the willows are in
blossom, we have found the young recently hatched larvae in considerable
abundance creeping briskly over the bees, or with their heads plunged
between the segments of the body, greedily sucking in the juices of
their host. Those that we saw occurred on the Humble and other wild
bees, and on various flies (Syrphus and Muscidae), and there is no reason
why they should not infest the Honey bee, which frequents similar
flowers, as they are actually known to do in Europe. These larvae are
probably hatched out near where the bees hibernate, so as to creep into
their bodies before they fly in the spring, as it would be impossible
for them to crawl up a willow tree ten feet high or more, their feet
being solely adapted for climbing over the hairy body of the bee, which
they do not leave until about to undergo their strange and unusual
transformations.

[Illustration: Early Stages of Meloe.]

In Europe, Assmuss states that on being brought into the nest by the
bee, they leave the bee and devour the eggs in the bee cells, and then
attack the bee bread. When full-fed and ready to pass through their
transformations to attain the beetle state, instead of at once assuming
the pupa and imago forms, as in the Trichodes represented in fig. 34,
they pass through a _hyper-metamorphosis_, as Fabre, a French
naturalist, calls it. In other words, the changes in form which are
preparatory to assuming the pupa and imago states are more marked and
almost coequal with the larva and pupa states, so that the Meloe,
instead of passing through three states (the egg, larva and pupa), in
realty passes through these and two others in addition, which are
intermediate. The whole subject of the metamorphosis of this beetle
needs revision, but Fabre states that the larva, soon after entering the
nest of its host, changes its skin and assumes a second larva form.
Newport, who with Siebo