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GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Dec. 15. 



such combs to advantage, and properly drawn 

 out for comb honey. I regard the method de- 

 scribed by Mr. Simmins in securing such combs 

 as extremely crude, and by no means equal to 

 the one adopted here — not by me alone, but by 

 others whom I will notattempt to mention now. 



Now, I trust that no one will harbor the idea 

 that the writer of this claims to be the origina- 

 tor of "drawn combs for sections," for such is 

 not the case. It is my belief that the party 

 who first conceived the idea, and who, perhaps, 

 has made a more extended and profitable use of 

 it than any other man living, whether in Eu- 

 rope or the United States, is still alive, and re- 

 sides in this (Kane) county, but who, for rea- 

 sons best known to himself, did not regard it as 

 good business policy to make the matter public 

 through any of the regular bee-periodicals. For 

 that reason, mainly, the matter has been kept 

 virtually a secret by the few to whom it was 

 disclosed a long time ago. 



St. Charles, 111. 



[Yes, it seemed to me, as I know it did to Mr. 

 Weed, that Simmins' method of securing the 

 drawn combs was laborious, not to say crude. 



But the point that interests me is, that you 

 and the bee-keepers you have named found 

 that there was a real distinct advantage in the 

 use of drawn combs in sections. The day will 

 come, and I believe it will not be far distant, 

 when all progressive comb-honey producers 

 can't afford to use any thing else.— Ed.] 



THE BIRD THAT PUNCTURES THE GRAPES. 



THE ORIOLE THE GUILTY BIRD. 



By Thaddeus Smith. 



I have a large vineyard, and have over 50 va- 

 rieties of grapes, and have been in the business 

 for a number of years, and have naturally paid 

 some attention to investigating the enemies 

 and diseases they are liable to. I have at times 

 had as many as 40 colonies of bees within 100 

 yards of my vineyard, and after several years 

 of thorough investigation I completely exoner- 

 ated the bees from being the author of any 

 damage to the grapes; and as I have on more 

 than one occasion given my views on this mat- 

 ter in the columns of Gleanings I will not 

 discuss it further here. 



There are a number of birds that eat grapes, 

 and some that destroy them without eating 

 them. The robins are the more numerous and 

 more frequent visitors to the vineyard, and in 

 their fall flight south they appear here by the 

 thousands, and are very destructive to the 

 smaller varieties, such as Norton's Virginia, 

 Bacchus, Delaware, etc.; and it is sometimes 

 necessary to keep a man with a gun in the 

 vineyard; but ihey do not do much oamage to 

 the larger grapes, such as Catawba, etc. Yel- 

 lowhammers and woodpeckers eat some grapes; 

 but I can afford to give them all the grapes 

 they eat for the benefit they do in destroying 

 worms and insects. 



But the bird that is most destructive to 

 grapes, and the one that pierces them, to be 

 followed by the bees, is that beautiful little 

 sweet singer, the Baltimore oriole; and I have 

 no doubt the specimen procured by the editor, 

 and sent to Prof. Green, was one of them. 



When a boy I knew, and was quite familiar 

 with, the or; ole as the "swinging bird," so called 

 from their habit of building their curious pen- 

 dant nest from some overhanging swinging 

 limb of a tree, woven with scraps of hemp, lint, 

 and strings, and deftly tied to the limb— hang- 

 ing down like a small bag. I loved him for the 

 brilliant plumage of the male, for his gay and 

 cheerful snatches of song, and the curious nest 

 they made, two or three of which were made 

 every spring in the pendant limbs of the big 

 buckeye-tree in the yard of my "old Kentucky 

 home," safe even from a boy's curiosity to 

 know what kind of eggs she laid, and it was 

 hard for me to look upon it as an enemy. 



Only a few orioles breed here; but, like the 

 robin, in their migration they appear here in 

 large numbers in August and September. They 

 arrive just in time for the early grapes, and 

 prefer the tender-skinned varieties, such as 

 Delaware and Brighton. They do not eat the 

 grapes, but simply puncture them with a small 

 triangular hole. 1 have never found grapes, 

 or grape seed in their crop. 



Why do they pierce the grape? A bird will 

 alight upon a cluster, and, with a quick mo- 

 tion, thrust its sharp bill into one grape after 

 another until a dozen or more are pierced, as if 

 in pure wantonness. It must be only for the 

 drop of juice thep get from each grape. Some 

 of the punctures can scarcely be seen when 

 first done; but they all have the three-cornered 

 cut. They are thus left to rot, dry up, or be 

 visited by the bees; and the number of grapes 

 destroyed, or clusters spoiled for market, 

 amounts to more than the damage done by all 

 other biros. 



The matured male bird is familiar to all, and 

 easily recognized by his bright colors of orange, 

 black, and gold; but the females and all young 

 birds — male and female — are of a rather dull 

 olive hue, with black and pale yellow inter- 

 mingled—not all of a uniform color, and are 

 not so easily recognized, and may be mistaken 

 for other birds, as in the case of Prof. Green. 

 They have a stout long bill, very sharp-point- 

 ed. When 1 first found grapes punctured with 

 three-cornered holes it was quite a mystery as 

 to what did it. It took patient watching and 

 waiting for some years before I was certain of 

 the guilty party; but evidence has accumulat- 

 ed until there is no doubt. 



There is another oriole here besides the Bal- 

 timore. It is a smaller bird. The male is 

 nearly black, with a few streaks of yellow, and 

 the female a light dingy yellow. They make a 

 nest somewhat pendant, of long blades of 



