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THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



[Aug. 



[For the American Bee Journal.] 



Do Bees Injure Fruit ? 



Dear Editor: 



I noticed in the Weekly Tribune of June 25, 

 an article on the destruction of fruit by bees, 

 which coming from a man claiming scientific 

 knowledge of the suljject, constrains me to 

 make a few comments. After an indictment 

 against the bees for destroying fruit by one 

 " Penn." this sapient Prof. Riley (of what I 

 know not, though I trust not of theology), 

 quotes one Widandy of Jeff. Miss., who says he 

 lost his entire peach crop in 1873 by the rav- 

 ages of bees. The learned Prof suggests that 

 legal redress is impossible, but very decidedly 

 advises his bee-hating friends to cultivate milk- 

 weed, the gluten of whose bloom adheres to the 

 bee and it soon falls down and dies. Or again, 

 this modern Borgia suggests sweetened water 

 and cobalt, which kills every bee that partakes. 

 Again he says the bee-martin should be encour- 

 aged for their bee eating qualities. What shall 

 we think of a Prof who promulgates the doc- 

 trine that the useful honey bee that gathers 

 honey from a thousand flowers that would other- 

 wise waste their sweetness on the summer air, 

 should be devoted to wholesale devastation. 

 He further says that he has known an apiary so 

 decimated (probably by his advice) that one 

 half of the hives gave out. 



I am not a scientific man or a Prof, but am a 

 practical apiarian of many years, and a close 

 observer of the habits and instincts of the 

 honey bee, am bold in my contradiction of the 

 Prof when he charges bees with the intuitive 

 in destroying grapes, peaches, jjlums, and 

 pears. I have an orchard of four acres of many 

 varieties of fruit, in the suburbs of a city of 

 18,000 people, with many near neighbors, who 

 also possess fruit, and I or they have never suf- 

 fered from the depredations of the bees on 

 fruit. 



I have watched them closely and attribute 

 the whole trouble to two reasons : the hornets 

 and wasps, and the nature of the fruit ojDerated 

 upon. It is well know that the Delaware grape 

 and many varieties of thin skinned plums and 

 pears, when dropsical with their juices crack 

 open, their saccharine matter exudes and decay 

 follows. Bees, ever on the alert for forage feed 

 upon it greedily. In every instance tliat has 

 come to my notice, and they are many, fruit is 

 first punctured by wasps and hornets, or yellow 

 jackets. They are the burglars who have broken 

 open the store houses and the bees follow in 

 their wake. Hornets and wasjos alone possess 

 the mandibles equal to the task of cutting the 

 skin of the most tender grape, pear or peach, 

 and I challenge the Prof to show a well authen- 

 ticated fact to the contrary, or that bees are 

 rogues as charged. 



Again, I would say the Prof, has been deceived 

 or has deceived himself, when he says bee- 



martins or king birds destroy bees. Three 

 years ago I shot many of these birds after their 

 scanty repast around my hives, and in every 

 instance I found after dissecting their stomachs, 

 what? honey bees? No, not one! But the 

 black ant, larvae of the bee moth, and in two 

 out of ten birds a drone bee. So I think the 

 Prof will be obliged to hunt up some other 

 agent for the destruction of bees. I could 

 wish they were all as harmless as the bee-martin. 

 I too encourage the bee martin but from a dif- 

 ferent motive, believing them to be the best 

 scavenger I have in destroying insects, and the 

 moth larvae. 



I cannot think so ill of any one as to suppose 

 them desirous of the wholesale slaughter of 

 the paragon of insects, so useful to man and one 

 so self supporting. If Mr. Riley is a Prof, of 

 theology, his advice to make war upon the 

 honey bee is strangely at variance with that 

 divine precept. Love your neighbor as yourself, 

 where he advises the people to poison his neigh- 

 bor's stock, and I deem him a fitting candidate 

 for the attention of Bergh, and did I know the 

 address of the Prof I would advise Bergh to 

 have an eye on this man of science, for I know 

 not how far his apiphobia may carry him with 

 his poisonous suggestions. 



Chas. D. Hibbard. 



Auburn, N. Y. 



[Translated from Kleine's Bee Journal.] 



How to Peaceably Unite two oi More Swarms. 



The bee-keeper is often under the necessity 

 of uniting several swarms. This is the case 

 about swarming time, when he will often be 

 compelled to unite two or more swarms. This 

 happens especially with after-swarms, of which 

 it will often require several to make one good 

 one. In these and various other cases must the 

 bee-keeper unite his stocks. The danger then 

 presents itself to the bee-keeper that he may 

 lose a portion, perha]3S a large portion, of his 

 united stocks l)y their fighting among each 

 other, while by judicious management hardly a 

 bee will be injured or killed. 



In accomplishing this union there are two 

 questions of importance : 



1st. When shall the union take place? 



2d. How shall it be accomplished ? 



When the union takes place the bees them- 

 selves teach us. Do two colonies unite, when 

 swarming, the bees mingle together without 

 anger, no bee through hostility injuring another. 

 While the swarm is settling the assembled bees 

 ajapear to think of nothing but the act of 

 swarming, not even guarding their queen, as 

 the bee-keeper discovers, when a young queen 

 is placed in a virgin swarm and the old one 

 killed. 



Does the bee-keeper desire to unite his 

 swarms, he should do it on the same day on 



