112 



STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE 



September and by September 24th all were ripe except Jefferson and lona. 

 As already intimated the damage was considerable, becomin<4- evident 

 even before maturity. The results will sutliciently app^nir from the fol- 

 lowing table: 



m the case of the three kinds much injured it became constantly more 

 evident that the damage to those in the bags was greater than to those 

 to which the bees had access. This was especially true of the Duchess 

 and the Delaware. So evident was it that the reason of this lay in the 

 fact that the juice oozing from cracked grapes in the bags was communi- 

 cated to neighboring grapes causing incipient decay, a weakness of skin 

 and cracking where otherwise cracking would not have occurred, that 

 by the middle of the month I hastened to remove the bags from these 

 varieties that the bees might gather the juice from the broken grapes. 



To my mind the conclusion is inevitable that not only do bees not injure 

 grapes but that by gathering the juices of cracked ones tbey prevent 

 decay and thereby the destruction of sound grapes. 



FEEDING BACK. 



It has been thought worth while to repeat the experiment of feeding 

 back extracted honey for the completion of unfinished sections. It has 

 also been found more convenient and desirable to do so owing to the 

 fact that the character of the season has been such that the percentage of 

 partially filled sections has been greater during the past season (1896) 

 than ever before. This was owing to the shortness of the honey season 

 and the slender character of the honey liow. The extent of this was 

 such that but now and then a colony completed even one case. For the 

 purposes of the experiment four colonies, were selected. All were hybrid 

 bees, so-called, and very strong. For a brood chamber, each colony was 

 given a single section of the Heddon hive containing frames equal to five 

 Langstroth frames. Doubtless a brood chamber even smaller, perhaps 

 as small as two and a half L. frames, would have been better, and this 

 for two reasons. First, much less of the honey would have been required 

 for the rearing of brood, as the extent of that would have been reduced 

 by one half. I have heretofore given reasons tending to show that it 

 requires two pounds of honey for the production of one pound of brood 

 and that a section of the Heddon hive^ if almost entirely devoted to brood, 

 would contain about ten pounds of it. If this is substantially correct, 

 it will be seen by consulting the table presented herewith that twenty 

 pounds of honey would be required every three weeks to produce the 

 brood of each of the colonies used in this experiment. This amount of 



