338 HEPORT OF THE COilMISSIONEK OF AGRICULTURE. 



juice except that oozin^^ from the puncture. Many erroneously suppose 

 that bees stinj? the grapes. Bees never sting except in self-defense or 

 in defense of their homes from real or imaginary danger. 



At limes when bees could gather nothing in the iaelds we saturated 

 clusters of grapes with honey and suspended them in front of the hives 

 iji the apiary, and from branches of trees and grape-vines near by. 

 Other clusters dipped, in honey and sirup were hung in the house. The 

 bees thronged upon the grapes until the clnsters looked like little swarms 

 hanging to the vines and limbs. They lapped the grapes until the skins 

 were polished perfectly smooth and shining, like the inside skin of an 

 onion, and no taste of sweet could be detected by touching the tongue 

 to the grape. The skins of the grapes were left intact. 



Bees, like some animals of a higher order, seem to enjoy stolen sweets 

 better than any other. Taking advantage of their propensity to steal 

 and despoil, we placed combs containing honey in an unoccupied hive 

 and permitted the bees in the apiary to steal the honey and such por- 

 tions of the combs as they could appropriate. We then suspended in- 

 stead of the despoiled combs clusters of grapes dip])ed in honey. The 

 bees attacked with desperate earnestness, a[)[)arently determined to 

 literally go through those grapes. The clusters were left hanging for 

 a day or two, until the bees had entirely deserted the hive, and exami- 

 nation showed the grapes to be as sound as when placed there and the 

 skins polished smooth and clean as before. 



We then punctured the grapes of several clusters by passing a darn- 

 ing needle through the berries from side to side, and hung them in the 

 house near the hungry bees. They sucked the juices from the broken 

 segments as far as they could insert their tongues into the wound, leav- 

 ing a depression near the puncture, and the remainder of the pulp was 

 left whole. 



The instinct of bees impels them to remove everything useless or 

 strange irom their hive. They will labor harder to remove any object 

 which is useless or offensive than for any other purpose. After paSvS- 

 ing a darning needle through some of the grapes in several clusters of 

 tliffereut varieties, wo suspended these clusters from the top of comb 

 frames by using fine wire, and plaiced them in the center of strong col- 

 onies of both hybrids and Italians. The juice was extracted from the 

 punctured segments as before, and the perfect grapes hung undisturbed 

 for lifteen days. They appeared to have kept better hanging in the 

 hive than they would have kept on the vines. 



The evidence then shows that bees do not injure perfect fruit. Wo 

 have observed that they give no attention to the puncture and blight 

 caused by the ovipositing of other insects, until after the larva is hatched 

 and decay has set in, and then only in cases of extremity. The circum- 

 stances under which bees appear to be able to injure grapes are very 

 excej^tional. That they will not molest or even visit grapes when it is 

 ]><)Hsiblc to secure forage elsewhere is certain. It also appears certain 

 that they never attempt violence to the skin of grapes. The capacity 

 vt' bees to injure overripe grapes is limited by the extent to which the 

 juice and pulp are exposed by the bursting of the film. If the film is 

 only slightly burst the bees can do but little injury. If the progress of 

 decay has caused a wide rupture in the film the bees more readily appro- 

 priate the juice. If overripeness and decay have exposed the pulp of 

 grapes to such an extent that bees can damage them seriously, the bees 

 should be confined to the hive (unless the weather be excessively hot), and 

 the grapes should at once be gathered, for from this stage the progress of 

 decay is rapid. Confinement to the hive for a short time, while the over- 



