1910 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



581 



Conversations with 

 Doolittle 



At Borodino 



BEES INJURING FRUIT: WHEN BEES WORK 



ON FRUIT, WHAT BREAKS THE SKIN 



IN THE FIRST PLACE? 



" I'm in trouble. My neighbor says my 

 bees are eating up all his pears, and sting- 

 ing the children when they go to pick them 

 up. What shall I do?" 



"First, take him some honey and tell 

 him you are very sorry the bees are incon- 

 veniencing him." 



" But I fear it is too late for that. I told 

 him I had as good right to keep bees as he 

 had to raise pears. And he got mad and 

 swore at me." 



'That was where you made a great mis- 

 take, and just where very many fail. 

 While, without doubt, you have a perfect 

 right to keep bees, yet the man who is an- 

 noyed by them can not see why you should 

 be allowed to keep something which he 

 thinks is destroying his property and keep- 

 ing the children from gathering it." 



" Yes, but he said my bees were eating up 

 his i^ears. And I told him that bees never 

 make the first start on any fruit — that if he 

 would keep his chickens away from the 

 pears, so they would not go along and take 

 a mouthful or two from each pear, the bees 

 would not touch them at all. He told me I 

 was a liar, and I got hot." 



"Well, well. I am very sorry that you 

 should have given our pursuit the black 

 eye in that way. If he had told you that 

 he once kept bees, and knew that bees 

 would enlarge an entrance to their hive, and 

 narrow down wood separators by biting 

 them, and that they could bite through a 

 pear, peach, or grape skin just as well, you 

 would ha\'e found yourself without a rea- 

 sonable response. 



" Now% while I am free to admit that bees 

 could tear open the skin to fruits, I have 

 never known of their so doing, although I 

 was once almost certain that they did do it. 

 8ome twenty years ago there came a dearth 

 of nectar at just the time a much-prized 

 kind of pear was ripe. I had no chickens, 

 yet the bees fairly swarmed on the i)ears on 

 the ground. On a closer inspection I found 

 the bees were also at work on those in the 

 tree; but I noted that, instead of the skin 

 being gnawed so that the bees could work 

 through it, each pear on which they worked 

 had a deep hole going well down toward the 

 center. This I knew was not the work of 

 the bees, so I got up as soon as there was 

 any light the next morning and stationed 

 myself in a little thicket near the tree. As 

 soon as I could see, an oriole or golden rob- 

 in, as they are called here, came into the 

 tree; then another and another, till there 

 were some ten or twelve of them at work on 

 those pears. And they did not seem satis- 



fied to stay at any one pear for any length 

 of time, but, taking a mouthful or two out 

 of one, they would go to another, and so on. 

 During the day not a bird of this kind was 

 seen about the tree; and had it not been for 

 my early morning watch I should have 

 felt that the bees were the real enemy of my 

 fruit." 



"You spoke of grapes. Another neigh- 

 bor often accuses my bees of destroying his 

 grapes." 



"Bees and grapes have been discussed for 

 ages, almost; and I have always claimed 

 that bees could bite through a grape-skin if 

 they set out to do so. At certain times dur- 

 ing the past I have been almost convinced 

 that they really did do it. I grow eight 

 different kinds of grapes, among which is 

 the variety known as the Worden. This is 

 a large black grape, but not as sweet as 

 some of my other kinds. After a little I 

 noticed that the bees were at work on these 

 Wordens, but on no other kinds. Two 

 days after they had commenced work on 

 the grapes, on passing by these vines I 

 found the bees fairly swarming on the 

 bunches next to the wood-shed, which was 

 partly filled with wood. As this shed broke 

 the wind it was much warmer here than at 

 the other end of the vines, and I thought 

 that this was why the bees worked here. 

 The skin of the grapes on the upper side of 

 the bunches was badly mangled, and in 

 many cases there were two and even three 

 bees inside the skins sucking up the juices. 

 I went to Mr. Clark's Wordens, but not a 

 bee nor an injured grape was to be seen. 

 Every thing i)ointed to the bees till the 

 next day. On returning I picked a pan of 

 the Worden grai)es, fearing the bees would 

 ruin all of them, and set this pan in the 

 wood-shed. Imagine my surprise to find all 

 of the ujiper grai)es in that i)an with skins 

 mangled the same as those on the bunches 

 the bees were at work on, when I went to 

 the wood-shed about 10 a.m. for an armful 

 of wood. On a close examination I found 

 mouse -droppings scattered about among 

 the grapes. I now had the clue to the mat- 

 ter, as I knew that, in all the cases which 

 had come under my notice, the bees had 

 worked on the grapes which were next to 

 some building, pile of wood, stone, or rub- 

 bish of some" kind which would harbor 

 mice. I took the pan of grapes from the 

 shed, removed every bunch from the vines 

 on which the bees were at work, and put 

 them in the house. The bees hovered about 

 the other bunches and crawled over the 

 grapes for nearly an hour, growing less and 

 less, till at one o'clock, the time they were 

 the thickest the day before, all the bees had 

 left, only a stray one, now and then, hover- 

 ing about. The next morning I was at the 

 Worden vines before any bees had thought 

 of getting out, and found some twenty 

 bunches, nearest the woodshed, with the 

 grapes having their skins all mangled like 

 those picked off the day before. I left them 

 to see the result, and the bees swarmed on 

 them as soon as the sun was shining." 



