192 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



[For the American Bee Journal.] 



The Wenham Eee Muss. 



Mr. Editor :— I judge by what I have seen in 

 the Journal that you do not know that the vote 

 to banish bees from the town of Wenham was 

 reconsidered at an adjourned meeting, held only 

 three weeks later than the annual town meet- 

 ing. Bat such is the fict; and we have now no 

 law upon the town records banishing bees from 

 oar bounds. 



Now, while I am upon this topic, I may as 

 well give your readers a little history of this 

 bee question. I very much doubt whether four 

 persons can be found in the town of Wenham, 

 who believe that bees do injure the fruit by tak- 

 ing the honey from the blossoms. But the fact 

 is (or was) that Mr. Gould had, by good man- 

 agement that season, made his bees pay him a 

 very handsome income; and it was well-known 

 throughout the town and county that Mr. G. 

 had realized somewhat over six hundred dollars 

 ($600) from fifty-two hives of bees, besides an 

 increase of more than thirty new swarms. 



Well, the fruit-growers, (of whom we have a 

 few) got the idea into their heads that all of this 

 six hundred dollars was just so much money out 

 of their pockets And they determined to stop 

 this kind of "thieving," as they chose to call 

 it, at any cost. For this purpose some of them 

 set themselves at work, and thus lawyers, pro- 

 fessors, and scientific men generally were con- 

 sulted as to the best plan of getting rid of the 

 bees, and proving them to be a nuisance. 



But the trouble was, they found it difficult to 

 discover anybody who knew more about bees 

 than themselves, that would state that the bees 

 did any injury to fruit by taking honey from 

 the blossoms. They then even went so far as 

 to visit some of the members of the Legislature, 

 to see whether they could not procure the enact- 

 ment of a law declaring bees a nuisance 

 throughout the State. In this quarter, too, 

 they met with no success or encouragement. 

 They were generally laughed at, in some cases 

 called fools, and coolly advised to go home. 

 This, however, did not not check them in the 

 least. They were determined to punish Mr. 

 Gould, if any mode of doing it could be devised. 

 So when the town meeting came, they made out 

 to muster thirty, of the two hundred voters in 

 the town, to vote that bees were a nuisance. 

 Well, the adjourned meeting came, and the re- 

 sult was as above stated. 



Mr. Gould removed his bees and family from 

 Wenham, early in the spring of 1868, several 

 weeks before the trees blossomed, and when 

 they did blossom very few bees could be seen 

 on them, as not over twenty hives of bees were 

 left in the town after Mr. Gould's removal. As 

 a consequence, our fruit-growers expected a 

 very large crop of all kinds of fruit ; but in this 

 they were disappointed. All our fruit trees 

 blossomed profusely, and apple and cherry tree 

 never looked better and more promising ; yet I 

 venture to say that there never was so little 

 fruit raised in Wenham as in the year 1868. 

 Now, Mr. Editor, to make a long story short, 



thisbce and fruit question was all a humbug; 

 and was got up to injure Mr. Gould, because 

 some of the "good(?) people of Wenham" sup- 

 posed Mr. G. was making too much money out 

 of it. 



One reason why they found fault was this, 

 that Mr. G. had only one acre of land to feed 

 his bees upon. Now Mr. G. raised more fruit, 

 with the exception of apples, than nearly all 

 the rest of the fruit-growers; and all of this from 

 the one acre of land. The season before they 

 got up this "bee muss" Mr. G. was obliged to 

 gather one half of his fruit before it was fairly 

 ripe, to keep his trees from breaking down. 

 Four barrels of Bartlett pears alone were thus 

 gathered. Mr. Gould had most of his bees in the 

 garden, among his trees. So you see, Mr. Edi- 

 tor, Mr. Gould not only got the honey but the 

 fruit also. 



I am inclined to think that we Wenham bee- 

 keepers are not likely to be troubled again by 

 the fruit-growers. I have not heard the thing 

 mentioned since the trees blossomed lastspring. 

 Had there been a good crop of fruit raised in 

 Wenham last season we should, of course not 

 have heard the last of it very soon. 



One man who has kept bees for fifty years, 

 and lost them only the year before, made this 

 speech in town meeting : " He said that he had 

 seen the bees sucking the honey out of his ma- 

 nure heap, and did not believe his manure was 

 so good for this reason. But he was willing 

 that bees should be kept in town, if they were 

 only fenced in so that they could not get out." 

 Another man said that the bees made his fruit 

 sour and wormy. 



We bee-keepers had about made up our minds 

 that the bees would be held responsible for the 

 potato rot — a disease which troubles New Eng- 

 land farmers very much. 



I am sorry that we did not have a reporter at 

 the town meeting to report all that was said and 

 brought up against the bees. Frank Leslie's 

 "Budget of Fun" would not begin to compare 

 with it. 



H. Alley. 



Wenham, Mass. 



[For the American Bee Journal.] 



The Bee Plants. 



I intended to state, long ago, that I found the 

 Cleome integrifolia I procured from Mr. Terry, 

 identical with the Polinisia purpurea which I 

 had previously raised. 



I think it will hardly pay to cultivate it so 

 far north as this, because the weather after the 

 first of August is so variable that flowers often 

 fail to secrete honey. 



I have never had much box honey stored 

 after the 10th of August, excepting one year, 

 1867. 



But as bees work on this plant freely all day 

 and for five or six weeks, I should think it 

 might do well further south. 



J. L. Hubbard. 



Walpole, N. H. 



