10!) 1 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



19 



and left the peach, and stung others ; that a 

 rotten spot at the points pierced by the stings 

 would soon set in, and this would be subse- 

 quently visited by the bees. In the higher 

 court, that same set of witnesses testified that 

 the bees punctured the fruit with the "head 

 end " and not with the "business" end. It 

 was evident that the prosecution had realized 

 the utter absurdity of the former statement. 

 The plaintiff, fruit-man Utter, while on the 

 stand went on to describe how the bee moved 

 its head first to one side and then the other, 

 and raised upon its legs and flopped its wings; 

 that after this performance he found there was 

 a hole. This was corroborated with some va- 

 riation by his two sons. It was amusing to 

 see the plaintiff try to mimic the bee, on the 

 witness-stand, as he swayed his head from one 

 side to the other, raised up on his legs, and 

 flopped his arms. His motions were so Utter- 

 ly ridiculous, and so contrary to the real acts 

 and movements of bees, that every one in the 

 court-room, including the jury, laughed, and 

 laughed heartily. I sincerely believe that, if 

 the jury had gone out at that supreme mo- 

 ment on the evidence then presented, we 

 should have had a verdict in our favor, even 

 without one word of rebuttal testimony. 



Another witness, Mrs. W. H. Utter, the wife 

 of the plaintiff, testified that the bees would 

 alight on the fruit, and then with their 

 "horns" make holes in the peaches. She 

 stated that there were eight holes in one peach 

 she examined, and that three bees were on it ; 

 that, after they left, there were three more 

 holes, or eleven in all. Mr. Bacon, one of our 

 attorneys, in his cross-examination, got at the 

 facts something in this way : 



" You say, Mrs. Utter, that there were three 

 holes after three bees had visited that peach ? '" 



"Yes." 



" You say that the bees made these holes 

 with their horns? " 



" Yes, sir." 



" Where were these horns located ? " 



" On the top of the head." 



"Two prongs like this?" said he, putting 

 his two hands over his head. 



" Yes." 



"And they took tho,se two horns, and dug 

 them right down into the peach, did they?" 



" Yes." 



"Well, now, Mrs. Utter, will you tell the 

 jury how three bees, each with two horns, 

 could make only three holes ? Shouldn't there 

 have been six holes ? " 



" Wy ah, wy-ah, wy-ah ; they took those 

 two horns and put them together, and then 

 poked them into the peach." 



" O — h ! " said Mr Bacon, with a wise look. 



At this there was an uproar of laughter. 

 When the jury and the audience had subsided, 

 Mr. Bacon continued : 



" You are sure the bees made these holes 

 with their horns?" 



" Yes." 



" Well, don't you know that those are an- 

 tennae, or feelers?"* 



Several had talked about the so-called 

 "horns," and how bees make holes with the 

 horns ; but after the learned counsel had 



shown the Utter absurdity of the horn theory, 

 then the prosecution began to talk about the 

 " jaws ; " and some of the witnesses told how 

 the bees ran their "bills" down into the 

 peach — meaning, of course, the tongue. But 

 the bill theory was untenable, and the rest of 

 the testimony was then confined to the jaws, 

 which, it was averred, were powerful enough 

 to puncture the skin of peaches. The prose- 

 cution claimed, among other things, that afttr 

 the bees had punctured the peaches the juice 

 ran down on the limbs, causing them to with- 

 er and dry up. In the former trial it was 

 maintained that the trees were utterly destroy- 

 ed ; and even in this trial the Peach Utter at 

 first talked of the destruction of the trees, and 

 claimed damage for the loss of trees and 

 fruit. The defense, on the other side, showed 

 by two good witnesses that the plaintiff, Mr. 

 Utter, the fruit-man, had said to each of the 

 affiants that these trees were going to die, and 

 he would have to pull them up, and this was 

 before the bees are alleged to have visited the 

 fruit. 



In this connection I might state that a great 

 deal of testimony was produced on the subject 

 of peach-trees with "wet feet," peach-trees 

 with "curl," and peach trees with the " yel- 

 lows." From all the evidence, it seemed very 

 clear that sotnethhtg was the matter with Peach 

 Utter's trees before the bees ever came near 

 them. It was admitted that the fruit ■was very 

 early, and from the expert testimony of fruit- 

 men it seemed to be pretty clear that the trees 

 had been forced up, or borne too early, with 

 the result that the fruit itself decayed prema- 

 turely, resulting in injury to the limbs of the 

 trees. There was testimony produced showing 

 that early pei^ches will very often develop rot- 

 ten spots, even when kept away from the vis- 

 itation of bees ; that these spots, at first invis- 

 ible, will be readily discovered by bees ; and 

 as the spots enlarge sometimes within the 

 space of two or three hours, the bees often gel 

 the blame for doing a kind of mischief that 

 clearly should not have been laid at their door. 



I omitted to say that Peach Man Utter 

 testified that he caught some bees from the 

 peaches and put them in a box. These bees 

 he liberated at different points, and he said 

 that, in every case except one, they flew to- 

 ward his brother's apiary. But the defense 

 showed that there were six or eight apiaries 

 all around Bee Utter's place, and that it proved 

 nothing to say that the confined bees flew to- 

 ward Utter's apiary. So there was no real 

 proof that Bee Utter's bees were the only tres- 

 passers, if trespass there was. 



I do not need to rehearse here the testimony 

 that was introduced by expert bee-keepers, 

 though I can not omit reference to the testi- 

 mony of Prof. Frank Benton, Assistant Ento- 

 mologist, Department of Agriculture, Wash- 

 ington, D. C. Prof. Benton had been sent by 

 the National Bee-keepers' Association to ren- 

 der expert testimony on the mouth parts of 



* I believe the witness was honest in believing that 

 the antennae, or feelers, were " horns : " and as they 

 moved up and down, touching the peach, she errone- 

 ously assumed that they were puncturing the peache s. 

 As to the three extra holes, she was evidently blinded 

 by prejudice. 



