1896 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



647 



your requirements. Make it double-walled, 

 oblong, four sides. The octagonal or round 

 found is too expensive, and has no particular 

 advantage. To make a house-apiary satisfac- 

 tory, you should use therein regular outdoor 

 hives. We send you an article written by F. A. 

 Salisbury, and which appeared in these col- 

 umns, p. 662, Sept. 1, 1895. Mr. Salisbury has a 

 house-apiary, and it is the best we know of. We 

 expect to put up a small building like it this fall 

 at our out-yard. 



THE BRITISH BEE-KEEPER'S GUIDEBOOK. 



The 14th edition is out of this already popu- 

 lar bee-book, by Thos. Wm. Cowan, editor of 

 the British Bee Journal and inventor of the 

 Cowan extractor. Within 15 years 25,000 cop- 

 ies have been sold, and within a month 2000 

 copies of the new edition have been sold. So 

 great has been the demand for it throughout 

 all Europe that it is now published in French, 

 German, Danish, Swedish, Spanish, and Rus- 

 sian. Of some of these, two or three editions 

 have been published, and it is safe to say that 

 no other bee-book is read in so many lan- 

 guages. The present edition has been thor- 

 oughly revised, enlarged, and a great portion 

 entirely re-written. Old methods and imple- 

 ments have been stricken out, and new ones 

 incorporated in their proper position. The 

 special feature of this edition is the introduc- 

 tion of a large number of beautiful half-tone 

 engravings representing various manipulations 

 of the bees, and every thing is put so plainly 

 that there is no chance for misunderstanding. 

 I suppose the reason for the great popularity 

 of this book is its small size and low price. It 

 is condensed, and yet covers fully all essential 

 details. The author, as nearly as I can discov- 

 er, has made his book small, not by covering 

 briefly every thing in bee-keeping, but by giv- 

 ing only the best plan or method in full, in his 

 estimation, thus avoiding confusion to the be- 

 ginner. The price of the book is the same as 

 formerly; namely, 40c in paper, or 70c in cloth. 

 It can be supplied from here. 



BEES AND grapes; SHALL WE PLACE ALL OR A 

 PART OF THE BLAME ON THE BEES? 



Yesterday a neighbor stopped me and said 

 he wished I could see how bees were working 

 on his grapes. Half of his crop would be ruin- 

 ed by the bees, he thought. I mounted my bi - 

 cycle, and in two or three minutes I found the 

 vines where the bees were at work, and, sure 

 enough, there was quite a few of them on and 



around the grapes. There were anywhere from 

 one to a dozen grapes in a bunch, whose skins 

 were partly opened or split, and the pulp in 

 some of them was literally sucked dry by the 

 delicate little tongues of the bees. I did not see 

 the bees puncture the grapes, but an incision 

 was made in some way; and whether by bird 

 or insect, the bees made a bad flnish by enlarg- 

 ing the gap and sucking the pulp dry. As soon 

 as one bee had gotten its fill, another would 

 take its place, and lick the pulp dry as far as its 

 tongue would reach, then would crowd the slit 

 a little wider open. I observed dozens and doz- 

 ens of them doing this thing ; and the elongat- 

 ing of the slit seemed to come about uninten- 

 tionally on the part of the bee, for no bee would 

 have sense enough to know that widening the 

 slit would give it access to new pulp; but in the 

 effort to reach fresh pulp the slit would very 

 gradually open. 



The grapes are what are called the " New 

 York," and were just beginning to ripen. The 

 skin is very delicate and thin. They look very 

 much like the Delawares, and taste like them, 

 but are much larger. I should say that at least 

 half of the crop would be ruined by the bees, 

 and our bees at that. It only remains for us to 

 make good his loss in someway. So far I can 

 not learn that the bees are or have been at 

 work on any other varieties in town. They 

 hardly ever molest our hardy Concords; and so 

 far this season we can not see that they have 

 touched our Niagaras or Delawares. I am a lit- 

 tle surprised that the bees should make an on- 

 slaught on the New York, particularly as there 

 is a little honey coming in from buckwheat and 

 white clover. 



Later. — In speaking of this matter with A. I. 

 R., he was very sure the bees did not puncture 

 or make the original incision — that some bird 

 or insect had preceded them, and the bees sim- 

 ply followed it up. Birds, he said, would make a 

 round hole and a slit starting from it; but I saw 

 no grapes having any thing of this kind on 

 them. While I was wondering how this slit 

 could have started in the first place, one of our 

 boys from the apiary, Fred, apparently divin- 

 ing my thoughts, said: 



"You don't think the bees punctured those 

 grapes ? " 



"N— n'no," said I, hesitating. 



" I think those slits or openings in the grapes 

 you saw were due to the remarkably warm and 

 wet season we have been having. The pulp, or 

 inside of the grape, was growing too fast for the 

 skin, or covering ; and the consequence is, it 

 simply burst, leaving only a small slit." 



" How do you know ? " said I. 



" Why, isn't it reasonable ? " 



" Yes, the most reasonable of any thing I have 

 thought of so far." 



And then he added: 



" I have seen the grapes burst more this year 



