194 EXPERIME]!7TAL FARMS 



2-3 EDWARD VII., A. 1903 



they were too weak to stand the process of extracting, and they would be too weak to 

 support heavy swarms or stand shipping. The results of these experiments show that it 

 is better in all cases to use full sheets of foundation, both in the sections of the supers 

 and in the frames of the brood chamber. 



Experiments to test whether Bees injure Sound Fruit. 



During the summer of 1901 when there was no surplus honey to be gathered from 

 plants outside, experiments were made with ripe fruit of four different kinds, peaches, 

 pears, plums, and grapes, exposed in different places in or near the Experimental Farm 

 apiary, where it was easily accessible to the bees. 



This experiment has been repeated during the season of 1902, with the addition of 

 strawberries and raspberries. All the fruit was placed in the same position as in 1901, 

 viz : (a) in the hives, (6) on trees and (c) in a work shop adjoining the house apiaiy. 



Peaches, pears, plums and grapes. — The fruit was exposed in three different con- 

 ditions : (1.) Whole, without any treatment ; (2.) Whole, after having been dipped in 

 honey ; (3.) Punctured in several places with the blade of a penknife. 



Four colonies were selected for this experiment, all of about equal strength. Each 

 of these colonies Avas in a hive upon which was placed a super divided in the middle by 

 a partition. From two of the hives the honey had all been removed, in the two remain- 

 ing hives five frames were left, each having considerable brood, with honey around it. 

 In each one of the four hives, the whole specimens of fruit not dipped in honey v/ere 

 hung within three empty frames tied together as a rack ; the whole specimens of fruit 

 dipped in honey were placed in one compartment of the super and the punctured spe- 

 cimens were placed in the other. 



A. The bees began to work at once both upon the dipped and the punctured fruit ; 

 the former was cleaned thoroughly of honey during the first night ; upon the punctured 

 fruit the bees clustered thickly, sucking the juice through the punctures as long as they 

 could obtain any liquid. 



At the end of six days all the fruit was carefully examined. The sound fruit was 

 still uninjured in any way ; the dipped fruit was in a like condition, quite sound ; but 

 every vestige of the honey had disappeared ; the punctured fruit was badly mutilated 

 and worthless ; beneath each puncture was a cavity, and in many instances decay had 

 set in. 



The experiment was continued the following week ; the undipped sound fruit was 

 left in the brood chamber, the dipped fruit was given a new coating of honey and 

 replaced in the super, and a fresh supply of punctured fruit was substituted for that 

 which had been destroyed. 



At the end of the second week both the undipped and the dipped specimens of 

 fruit that were sound at the end of the first week, as well as the punctured specimens, 

 were considerably decayed and, where there were any openings in the skin, showed signs 

 of having been worked on, though to no very great extent. 



For the third week fresh samples of fruit of all the above kinds were used ; the 

 result was very similar to that of the first week and, as it was later in the season, some 

 of the fruit that had been put in sound had begun to decay. 



After the third week the bees in the two hives which had been deprived of all 

 their honey, appeared to be vei'y sluggish, and there were many dead bees about the 

 hives, the weather being cool and damp was very much against these colonies. They 

 had lived for the first three weeks on the punctured fruit and on the honey of the fruit 

 which had been dipped, as there were at that season few plants in flower from which 

 they could gather nectar ; these bees had therefore died of starvation, notwithstanding 

 the proximity of the ripe juicy fruit. This supply of food which they were urgently in 

 need of, was only separated from them by the thin skin of the fruit, which, however, 

 this evidence seems to prove they could not puncture, as they did not do so. 



