SUMMER MEETING. IT 



But, says the objector, so far you have only spoken of the virtues 

 of your bees ; how about their destroying our tender peaches, grapes, 

 etc.? I answer, from my own experience and observation and the 

 writings of our closest students of nature, our domestic hive bee does 

 not injure perfectly sound and whole fruit of any kind, no matter how 

 ripe, tender or luscious. But stop, says the objector, I have myself 

 seen them by the thousand on my tender grapes and peaches in dry, 

 hot weather. Admit it, I have seen the same ; but when you examine 

 closely you will find that they are working exclusively on fruit that has 

 either cracked open, been bitten or is decaying. It is almost an impos- 

 sibility for the common hive bee to break the skin of fruit; they are 

 not built for that purpose ; their mandibles are made for working warm 

 wax in comb-building, and are comparatively as smooth and round at 

 the ends as the human fingers without nails, and as incapable of tear- 

 ing. As an evidence of this, they are not capable of splitting or tear- 

 ing open the nectar cups of red clover or any flower too deep for them 

 to reach the nectar. When honey is scarce, bees will collect any- 

 saccharine matter that comes within their reach, such as maple and 

 sorghum sap, or the juice of ripe fruit, if the skin is broken, but they 

 never meddle with whole or unbroken fruit; but when nectar is plenty 

 in the flowers, they seldom take notice of anything but honey. 



When a citizen of Illinois, the writer had an apiary of over a hun- 

 dred stands of bees, and during a hot dry summer when the flowers 

 were yielding no honey, a neighbor, who had a few dozen grape- vines 

 in bearing, complained that my bees were destroying all his grapes, 

 and when told that bees did not injure sound fruit he was incredulous, 

 and said he would prefer to believe his own eyes, and invited me over 

 to see for myself. On our arrival we found his grape-vines swarming 

 with bees, but in all cases they were sucking about wounded grapes, 

 cut by birds, etc., cracked open or rotting ; but argument was of no 

 avail, he would have it that my bees were aggressors. So I told him 

 I would put my bees to a very severe test, by placing a few bunches 

 of his ripest and sweetest but sound grapes at the entrance of my 

 most populous colonies, which we accordingly did ; and although they 

 remained there about a week, not a grape was injured in any way, 

 although the bloom was all worn off by the bees climbing over them, 

 and the grapes considerably withered by the heat of the sun. 



Bees are like all other living things : when pressed with hunger they 

 will eat anything accessible that will satisfy their wants, whether it is 

 legitimate food or not. 



