158 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



For the American Bee Journal. 



Do Bees Injure Fruit? 



In the June number of the American 

 Bee Journal, Prof. Riley tries to sustain 

 his position, by affirming that lie has seen 

 bees cutting into fruit. I have just read an 

 article in the journal V Apicoltore of Milan, 

 Italy, (May no.) that I translate, in answer 

 to that bold assertion. 



" Being a lover of good wine, I manufac- 

 ture mine with shrivelled grapes ; my crop 

 amounts annually from 30 to 40 hectolitres* 

 of such wine, worth an average 1 franc 75 

 centimes to the litre. -j- As my grapes are 

 gathered, I spread them upon a mat of reed 

 or straw, in a sunny place, in front of my 

 apiary ; where they remaia to shrivel for 

 about 15 days. 



For the first two or three days the mats 

 lire covered with bees ; but I do not care, 

 for I know that they do no damage ; 

 having ascertained that they gather only 

 the juice of the berries, rotten or damaged. 

 As soon as the injured berries are sucked 

 dry, the bees quit visiting the mats, for 

 tbey cannot cut the skin of the berries. In 

 iuy case I can say that, instead of damage, 

 bhe bees help me greatly ; for they take ott' 

 ontirely, from the bulk of my crops, the 

 putrefied juices, which would give a bad 

 bftste to my wine." Gactano Taxini. 



Coriano, Circ. di Rimini, February, 1874. 



I think that afj«r such testimony, the 

 assertion of Prof. Riley is of little account. 



Hamilton, 111. Ch. Dadant. 



* An hectolitre is equal to 2o gallons, 

 t Equal to $1.40 the gallon, that price is very 

 high for Italy. 



For the American Bee Journal. 



Doolittle's Article. 



Our bees had but four days on which 

 they could fly, from March 3rd to May 4th ; 

 and by the 15th of April all brood rearing 

 liad ceased in small and medium ^ocks, 

 and pretty much so in large ones. On 

 Marcti 18th the mercury rose to sixty 

 degrees in the shade, and bees were seen at 

 work qnite briskly on stumps of the sugar 

 maple, but with the night it became cold 

 and we had steady winter weather until 

 April 15th, when they had a chance to fly 

 again. On April IDth, 32nd, and 25th, 

 snow fell to the depth of one foot, and 

 lasted until May 3rd, during which time 

 the mercury did not rise above 41 degrees, 

 even in tlie middle of the day, and went 

 down as low as 18 degrees. 



May Uth it came ofl' (luite warm, and the 

 bees began to hatch the few eggs the queen 

 had laid, and brought in the first pollen of 

 .lay account, which was from elm and soft 

 aaple. iSkunk's cabbage was in full 

 )loom from March 20th to April 18, but it 



was so cold that the bees could not get to 

 it. On the whole, we think it was the 

 worst spring for bees we ever knew. May 

 4th the first day that we could really work 

 at bees, we examined them and found some 

 so weak that we thought it best to unite 

 them. We did so, and now have 51, one 

 of which proves to be queenless, so we 

 shall call it but 50 stocks to commence the 

 season with. Golden willow commenced 

 to blossom May 20th, from which our bees 

 frequently get from 5 to 7 lbs. of honey, 

 but owing to the cold and rainy weather 

 they could get nothing, and what was 

 worse still, they killed nearly all the larvie : 

 so little but sealed brood and eggs remain- 

 ed. May 24tli it became warm again and 

 our bees have done their level best ever 

 since, and the hives are beginning to be 

 quite well populated with bees. Apple 

 trees blossomed May 29th and our strongest 

 stocks made a gain of 12 lbs. of honey dur- 

 ing the time they were in bloom. White 

 clover was nearly all killed from freezing 

 the past winter, so we do not anticipate 

 much from that, but basswood hangs as 

 full of buds as we ever saw it. We forgot 

 to say we put one swarm in manure "a la 

 Novice," and that died out-right some time 

 during the cold weather of April. Our 

 first drones were flying June 5th, which is 

 nearly two weeks later than we ever knew 

 them before. We have spread the brood 

 once in six days, so we have our strongest 

 stocks nearly full. What we mean by full, 

 is brood in from 8 to 10 Gallup frames. 



By the way does not Gallup and Adair 

 get oif some pretty big notes about the 

 capacity of a queen for laying ? We have 

 had queens from nearly every breeder in 

 the United States and the best we ever had 

 would not keep more than ten Gallui> 

 frames full of brood, or about 900 square 

 inches of comb, occupied with brood for 

 two months in succession. We came to 

 the conclusion that 800 square inches of 

 comb would be about the average, so last 

 year built our new hives to hold but nine 

 frames instead of tw^elve. As the bees will 

 have some honey and pollen in their combs 

 the 9 frames give us about 800 square 

 inches of brood, or 1380 cubic inches comb 

 space. We place 42 boxes of 2 lbs. capa- 

 city in this hive and expect to get all the 

 honey the bees make in the boxes, but last 

 year they storeil enough to winter on in 

 the frames. 



Why does not Adair tell us how much 

 honey he receives on an average in his 

 apiary with those prolific queens and large 

 hives'? Let us figure a little and see what 

 is best. 800 square inches of comb would 

 give 40,000 worker bees every 21 days or 

 1,905 every day, and as 45 days is the aver- 

 age life of the bee in the working season 

 we would get 85,(525 bees on the stage of 



