REPORT OF THE ENTOMOLOGIST AND BOTANIST 255 



SESSIONAL PAPER No. 16 



Prof. Slingerland, of Cornell University, in an article in the Rural New Yorker of 

 November 10, 1900, cites the experiments which were carried out in 1885, by Mr. N. W. 

 JkfcLain, of Aurora, 111., by instruction of Prof. Riley, United States Entomologist, 

 from which these conclusions were drawn. (See U.S. Ent. Kep. 1885.) 



On September 7, 1901, when there was no surplus honey to be gathered on plants 

 outside, ripe fruit of four different kinds, viz., peaches, pears, plums and grapes, was 

 exposed in different places near the Experimental Farm Apiary where it was easily 

 accessible to the bees — 



(a.) Inside bee hives ; 



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



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



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

 fectly sound. 



A. — Eruit exposed inside bee hives. 



The fruit was exposed in three different conditions : (1.) Whole fruit without any 

 treatment ; (2.) Whole fruit which had been dipped in honey ; (3.) Eruit which had 

 been punctured in several places with the blade of a penknife. 



Eour 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 mid- 

 dle by a partition. From two of the hives the honey had all been removed, in the two 

 remaining hives five frames were left, each having considerable brood, with honey 

 around it. The former two at the beginning weighed on an average 27 pounds, the 

 latter two 34£ pounds. In each one of the four hives, the whole specimens of fruit 

 not dipped in honey were 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 specimens were placed in the other. 



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 punc- 

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

 as they could obtain any liquid. 



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

 was still uninjured in any way, but had the surface polished and shining as if the bees 

 had been travelling over it trying to find some opening through the skin. The dipped 

 fruit was in a like condition, quite sound, but every vestige of the honey had dis- 

 appeared. The punctured fruit was badly mutilated and worthless, beneath each punc- 

 ture was a cavity and in some instances decay had set in. 



The experiment was continued the following week, the undipped sound fruit being 

 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, the condition of this fruit was entirely similar to 

 that of the first lot. 



For the third week fresh samples cf fruit of all the above kinds were used, be- 

 cause some of the sound fruit had begun to decay ; this fruit, however, had the skin 

 unbroken, and in no case had the bees done any damage. The results were the same 

 as before. 



After the third week the bees belonging to the two hives which had been deprived 

 of all the honey appeared to be very sluggish, and there were many dead bees about the 

 entrances of the hives. These colonies had lived for the first three weeks on the punc- 

 tured fruit, and on the honey off 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 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 



