American Bee Journal 



DEVOTED EXCLUSIVELY TO BEE CULTURE. 



Vol. X. CEDAR RAPIDS, AUGUST, 1874. No. 8. 



immimuktw^, 



Correspondents should write only on one side of 

 the sheet. Their best thoughts and practical ideas are 

 always welcome ; no matter how rough, we will cheer- 

 fully '"fix them up." 



For the American Bee Journal. 



Bees, Birds and Grapes. 



What the Greeks or Ilomans may have 

 said or written on this question fails to 

 come down to us in history. But we find 

 the bee and tlie grape side by side, oecu- 

 pying the most deliglitful portions of our 

 globe for ages, witliout threat of deadly 

 poisons or other violence, till you come to 

 America in the year of our Lord, 1873. 



Over twenty years have I cultivated both 

 bees and grapes, consequently myaflections 

 are about equally divided between the two. 

 On a lot of some acres 1 have many of the 

 Choice fruits of the climate, with grapes in 

 profusion. 



My colonies, say 00 to 80 in number are 

 located under Apple, Peach, Pear, Quince, 

 Cherry, Grape and Plum trees, where con- 

 tact occurs necessnrially every season. Be- 

 ing a person of leisure, my opportunities 

 have been good to closely inspect this ques- 

 tion. Itoo like Prof. Eiley and hundreds 

 of horticulturists and apiarists have seen 

 bees cut into small fruits, especially grapes 

 and peaches. 



I too with all my family have had our 

 fingers cruelly stung in gathering th.ose 

 fruits when ripe. In years departed I have 

 witnessed my bees swarming by the thous- 

 ands on my trellises, a])parently threaten- 

 ing the entire destruction of my grape crop, 

 to say nothing of my pears and peaches. 

 My neighbors too, both learned and un- 

 learned, give their unimpeachable testimony 

 to the same state of facts among them- 

 selves. 



Surely this ought to be sullicient to con- 

 vict every bee in tlie land, and, as the law- 

 yers say, we might here rest the case. Now 

 I have summed up all I care about on this 

 side of the question, and am free to say, 

 there is not any evidence touching the vital 

 point at issue. Who cares what bees eat 



in general. All Aviuged insects live on 

 something. Every barefooted boy in the 

 land can testify to bees extracting the juice 

 from poniice laying around a cider mill, 

 }>ea!;hes, pears or grajies tliat have been 

 maimed, crushed, eaten into or broken 

 open by some other agency. But not one 

 living soul of all the parties to this ques- 

 tion have seen with the physical eye, a 

 honey bee at any time or under any cir- 

 cumstances pounce upon a bunch of grapes 

 or other fruit untouched by birds or in- 

 sects, perfect in all r{*spects ; and with its 

 mandibles eat through the skin or rind and 

 open up its contents to a free banquet ! 

 And 1 challenge all parties interested ia 

 this controversy to come forward through 

 the columns of this journal, not with cir- 

 cumstantial or superficial evidence, but 

 with facts bearing directly upon this vital 

 point. 



The season of 187?. visited a fearful 

 drouth on this portion of Ohio, and the 

 bees and l)irds alike were hard up forprov- 

 inder and made sad havoc with our grapes. 

 Some citir.eiis counted their loss as high as 

 twenty bu^^hels and vigorously pressed the 

 Village Council to expel the bees by ordi- 

 nance beyond cor])oration limits. Acting 

 on the spur of the moment they actually 

 passed an ordinance to its second reading 

 (repeating the Wenhaiu farce) imposing a 

 heavy penally for keeping bees within said 

 limits. In tlie mean time I had not been 

 idle, but applying tests to satisfy our peo- 

 ple of their error, I invited them to come 

 upon ray grounds and sec for. themselves 

 the Robhins, Red-birds and Orioles that lay 

 dead under my vines and fruit trees with 

 grape seeds'in tiieir stomachs and mouths, 

 as I had often shot tlienv in the act of biting 

 open the grapes as they hung on the vines. 



Our bees were undergoing a test also — 

 three hives had as many bunches of ripe 

 concord graj>es tacked to their fronts — that 

 passing out aiid in, contact was unavoida- 

 ble ; on the tilth day they remained un- 

 touched save the bees hunting through and 

 over them to find an open berry. Then I 

 opened with my knife say a quarter of the 

 berries on each bunch and true to their in- 

 stinct they began taking up the juice before 

 1 completed the job. In about forty-eight 

 hours they had taken up all the juice aud 



