132 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



the whole five years I failed to find a single case where bees did actually bite 

 open the skin of fruit and destroy it; but if there is the least opening in the 

 skin from any cause and the flow of honey is scarce, they will clean out all 

 damaged grapes, but will not go near fruit of any kind if honey is plenty ; and 

 I ask, is it not a benefit in place of a damage? None of us want to pack fruit 

 in a damaged condition, grapes especially, for if on a cluster of grapes are 

 only a few cracked ones they will spoil the whole cluster and all others they 

 may come in contact with if they lie any length of time. 



I have over thirty varieties of grapes, some with very thin skins and some 

 very early, and I cannot get my bees (I have four varieties) to touch any sound 

 fruit. I have cut fine clusters of very ripe fruit and placed on the platform of 

 the hives ; the bees would go over and around them. I then cut small open- 

 ings in a few berries and in a few moments they were covered with bees clean- 

 ing them out. After finishing all those cut, they went all over the sound ones 

 but did not cut one of them. I made a few pin holes in some with the same 

 results ; all were cleaned out. I had some very thin skinned grapes sent me for 

 trial, but "with the same results as before ; none were touched unless first 

 punctured. I suspended a cluster under a tree and poured sugar syrup on it. 

 They took all of the syrup but did not damage the cluster until a wasp man- 

 aged to bite three berries before I could kill it. Those three the bees finished. 



In conclusion I must say that with the many different experiments covering 

 a space of five years, being surrounded by bees, and affording them every 

 opportunity of doing damage, and failing to find them doing any, I think 

 those who are so bitter against the bees had better experiment for themselves 

 and ascertain if the bees do them any damage or not. They may come to the 

 same conclusion as the good people of Massachusetts, who years ago thought 

 the bees were a damage to their fruit and had them banished; but finding 

 their fruit began to decrease and to be of a poor quality, were only too glad to 

 have the law repealed and get the bees back again, when their fruit began to 

 improve. The field is broad, let all those Avho have their doubts carefully 

 experiment for themselves. 



Prof. Beal : I would like to ask what bees will do when nearly starved to 

 death? 



Prof. Cook : I have experimented a good deal in this direction, and find that 

 when starved, bees will gnaw to get out, but will not attack whole grapes to get 

 something to eat. If a bunch of grapes is put between the starving bees and 

 the light they may in their endeavors to get out gnaw open a grape, but it is 

 purely accidental with them. 



Prof. Beal: We can put these two things together then : bees can gnaw — 

 they have mandibles that can be used for this purpose ; when a grape is burst 

 open they will take the inside out — they like grape juice. Then may we not 

 expect they will be found damaging the grapes with the intelligence that is 

 claimed for them? 



Mr. Lannin : I am confident they will destroy peaches from my own obser- 

 vations, and it matters little to me whether they make the first incision or not. 



Mr. Barnard of the Western Rural detailed a year's experience in which bees 

 did his grape crop an enormous amount of damage, and he had every reason 

 to believe they made the first openings in the skin of the grapes. 



Mr. Edgell, South Haven : One season I allowed a neighbor to set a few 

 hives of bees upon my premises near the vineyard, and this is the only year in 

 my experience that my grapes were injured by bees. I believe they used their 

 jaws upon the outer grape to get at the pulp. 



