442 BOAKD OF AGEICULTUEE. 



Prof. Troop: Then why do you want to kill them? 



Mr. Swaim: I said that if I should kill them it was only a loss of 

 about ten or twelve dollars of bees, and probably a hundred dollars' worth 

 of fruit destroyed. 



Prof. Troop: How do you know the bees destroy the fruit? 



Mr. Swaim: I have eyes, I can stand there and see. I have seen 

 them doing it. 



Mr. Johnson: Bees never do anything like this. 



Prof. Troop: Did you ever see a bee sling one of the grapes, or break 

 the skin of the gi'ape? 



Mr. Swaim: Yes, sir; they were on them, and broke the skin and 

 sucked the juice. 



Prof. Troop: The skin was broken already. 



Mr. Swaim: I did not mean to say that the bees broke the skin. 



Prof. Troop: No, of course not. You are jumping at conclusions. 

 Wasps will break the coal of the skin of the grape; likewise Mill the 

 English spaiTow, but all the bees do is to gather the juice and make 

 honey out of it. You have never seen a bee cut the skin of a grape in 

 your life, and never will. 



Mr. .Johnson: For the benefit of this gentleman, and for others 

 present, I wish you would give your experience with bees along this line. 

 Prof. Troop. 



Prof. Troop: We are taking a great deal of time along about this, 

 but I will tell you of this little experiment. A few years ago I tried the 

 experiment just for my own satisfaction. I had a fine arbor of grapes, 

 and I took a mosquito netting and stretched it on the fence around the 

 grapes. I was very careful that I got everything out except the bees, 

 before I made this enclosure. I left the bees inside there for three weeks. 

 At the end of the three weeks I opened up the mosquito netting and let 

 the bees out and I couldn't find a single grape that had been cut during 

 the time the bees were in there. The bees didn't have anything else 

 to eat, and they did not then bother the grapes. There was not a grape 

 injured during the three weeks. Now, I knoAV that people claim that bees 

 destroy their grapes, but you can not find a man that Avill stand up hnd 

 say he saw the bees cut the skin of the grape. I think the bees would be 

 mighty poor chumps if they did not come along and gather up the juice 

 after the skin is cut and the juice is running out and going to waste. 

 Wasps will destroy grapes, but bees never. . 



