1909 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



55 



APRICOTS DAMAGED BY BIRDS; FRLITS THUS INJURED ARE SUCKED DRY BY BEES, WHICH STORE 



THE JUICE AS HONEY. 



BEES VS. FRUIT. 



The Birds and Not the Bees are to Blame; 



the Latter Clean up what the 



Former Destroy. 



BY W. A. PRYAL. 



The question, " Do bees destroy fruit?" has 

 been pretty well answered in the negative long 

 before this; still, there are some persons who to 

 this day insist that bees are the guilty marauders. 

 I have lived among fruits of various kinds all my 

 life, and I must throw the weight of my testimony 

 in favor of the bee. 



The past season 1 watched with more than 

 usual interest the destruction of the fruit of some 

 Royal apricots that grew at one side of my apia- 

 ry. Some of these trees furnished shade for many 

 of the colonies. 1 found bees working on the 

 fruit from morning until night. When fully 

 ripe this fruit is luscious. There is, to my mind, 

 no finer fruit than a fully ripe apricot, for it 

 comes very near being as rich as the best grade 

 of well-ripened honey, and the best ©f it is you 

 can eat more of them than you can of honey. 



In all my watching I was not able to find a 

 single case where the damage to ripe fruit was 

 started by the honey-gatherers. Many linnets 

 were about, and they are a sore pest to the fruit- 

 grower. In May they begin on cherries, which 

 they slaughter badly at times, and they run 

 through the gamut of tender-skinned fruits well 

 into the fall. They usually choose the ripest 

 and finest fruit for their prey. They seldom 

 make more than half a meal of a poor or under- 

 ripe fruit, but they simply dive head first, as it 

 were, into the dead-ripe 'cots. 



A fruit once opened by the birds is later set 

 upon by the bees, and they keep up their toil un- 

 til nothing is left but the skin and pit. And the 

 bees might as well have such fruit, for once it is 

 damaged by the birds it is useless for marketing. 

 If it is not picked at once it begins to decay; and 

 if not removed from an adjoining sound fruit, 



which it may happen to touch, the neighboring 

 one will rot too. Thus it is seen that in such a 

 case the bees are a benefit to the orchardist. And 

 here let me mention that the birds do not feast on 

 a fruit more than a single day. They seem to 

 want fresh fruit every time they begin a meal. 

 From this it is evident that a large quantity of 

 apricots is ruined. 



Pears, peaches, figs, and a number of other 

 fruits whose juices are sweet, are cleaned up by 

 the bees when first punctured by birds. Some 

 varieties of plums are liked by these insects, es- 

 pecially the French prunes. Juice of fruit of the 

 plum kind soon ferments, and I have been told 

 by Mr. W. E. Stewart, of Danville, Cal., that 

 he has seen thousands of bees at a time as tipsy 

 as lords from quaffing of alcoholic plum or prune 

 juice. This, no doubt, was a case where they 

 were too "full of prunes." The gentleman I 

 mentioned also stated that he and others noticed 

 some years that, where bees filled up on the juice 

 mentioned, they died, possibly of chronic alco- 

 holism — poor things! He said several years his 

 hives became much depopulated through this 

 means. In my apiary I never noticed bees un- 

 der the influence of the "drink habit," possibly 

 for the reason they had no chance to become full 

 of prune juice, as we have but a single tree of the 

 French prune, though we have many varieties of 

 plums. 



Bees are fond of grape juice. I never heard of 

 their getting drunk on it. It is possible that this 

 fruit does not ferment as rapidly as the more 

 slightly acid fruits. Bees clean up grapes rapid- 

 ly when they are injured by birds or when they 

 rot or crack after early and unexpected rains. 



The half-tone here shown is from a photograph 

 I made in August, when flowers were scarce. 

 The fruit had just been pecked by birds, and it 

 is from such fruit that the bees lose no time in 

 harvesting the nectar-like sweets. 



Twelve years ago when on a visit to a com- 

 mission house in San Francisco I was given a 

 sample of a rich jelly-like article from a five-gal- 



