p REPORT OF THE ENTOMOLOOh'^T AND BOTANIST 195 



SESSIONAL PAPER No. 16 



The mean weight of each of these two hives on September 5, when the experiment 

 began, was 2i^ pounds ; at the end of the experiment four weeks later, each had lost 

 3| pounds. Tlie mean weight of the two hive-s in each of which five frames with brood 

 and honoy had been left, was at the beginning of the experiment 36| pounds; the mean 

 loss for each of these hives was at the end 1| pounds. 



B. — Fruit exposed in the open air, hung from the branches of a tree in the apiary 

 inclosure. In this experiment three sets of whole fruit were used, one being dipped in 

 honey, one left undipped and whole, and the third punctured as before. The bees 

 worked on the dipped and the punctured fruit, but were not seen to work on the undipped 

 fruit, which remained perfectly whole. 



C. — Fruit exposed on shelves in a work shop adjoining the honey house. This fruit 

 as in the preceding experiments, consisted of whole undipped fruit, of dipped fruit, and 

 of punctured fruit. The bees worked both on the dipped and the punctured fruit ; only 

 an occasional bee was noticed vainly looking for an opening on the whole undipped fruit. 



Straivherries. — On July 2, 1 902, ripe fruit of four sorts of strawberries, the Williams, 

 Clyde, Bubach and Warfield, was exposed in the same positions as the other fruit, where 

 it was easily accessoible to the bees : — 



[a.) Inside the bee hive ; 



(b.) On branches of trees in the apiary inclosure. 



(c.) On shelves in a workshop to which bees had access through an open window. 

 Every care was taken that all the fruit used in this experiment should be perfectly 

 sound. 



(A.) Fruit exposed inside bee hives. 



The fruit was exposed in three different conditions (1) whole fruit without any 

 treatment, (2) whole fruit that had been dipped in honey, (3) fruit of which each berry 

 was cut in two. 



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



Each of these colonies was in a hive upon which was placed a super divided in the 

 middle by a partition. In each one of the four hives, the whole specimens of fruit not 

 dipped in honey were placed within three empty frames tied together as a rack iu the 

 brood chamber ; the whole specimens of fruit dipped in honey were placed in one 

 compartment of the super, and the berries cut in two were placed in the other. 



The bees began to work at once upon the dipped fruit in the hive and kept 

 continually on it as long as any honey could be obtained ; they also clustered thickly 

 on the whole berries and those cut in two, but did not appear to be getting or even try- 

 ing to secure any substance from them 



(B, C.) The fruit exposed on the branches of trees and on the shelves in a workshop 

 was not visited at all by the bees but decayed and dried up. In the hives all fruit 

 decayed more quickly from the extra heat from the bees. This experiment lasted one 

 week. 



Raspberries. — Four varieties were used, the Red, Purple, very light coloured and 

 Black Cap. On July 29, some berries of each sort were placed in the hives in exactly 

 the same positions as the strawberries. At this date there was considerable honey 

 coming in, and the bees did not touch any of the raspberries. 



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