GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



m 



cally. To do this the beckooper has an easy 

 iiiPihod right at his hand. Ho hus only to dip 

 the paper in hot melted wax, getting just as 

 little wax as possible on it. Then if ho wraps 

 the sections while the wax is a little warm he 

 will so seal the package that no odor of honey 

 can escape, and so the insects will not be 

 attracted. I should have great confidence that 

 this would work, but of course it would have to 

 be tried before we would warrant it. I should 

 also have great faith if we u^ed paralline in- 

 stead of the beeswax. 



California is much like Florida in this respect. 

 The climate is so delightfully genial the year 

 round, that it is a perfect paradise for insect 

 life. The ant is on deck, gay and festive, every 

 day of the year, and thus ever ready to become 

 a nuisance in pantry or storehouse. For this 

 reason extracted honey is more suitable for 

 production in California than is comb honey. 

 This is another reason, then, why the Califor- 

 nia honey-producer may well turn his attention 

 to the production of extracted rather than 

 comb honey. When the honey is thoroughly 

 sealed in the tin cans it is entirely safe from 

 any such molestation. 



Claromont, Cal., April 1. 



[I know that bees seem to have an aversion 

 for paraffine paper, or. in fact, of any thing 

 paraffined; and I was under the impression 

 that certain other insi-cts seemed to show a dis- 

 like to its slight flavor of kerosene. A package 

 of comb honey can be wrappf^d in it. I am told, 

 so that it may be sealed hermetically by plac- 

 ing a flatiron over the foliis until the paraffine 

 melts, when the iron is released.— Ed.] 



BEES AND GRAPES IN CALIFORNIA. 



VAT-UABI.E TESTIMONY FKOM ONE WHO PRO- 

 DUCES HONKV BY THE 40 TONS AND RAIS- 

 INS BY THE CARLOAD. 



By O. F. Merriam. 



In the discussion of the " bees and grapes" 

 question in the papers, I have waited, hoping 

 some one else in this State would take up the 

 subject; but as no one has done so I will give 

 my experience, which runs through 16 years. 



I happen to own a vinery planted in 1880 to 

 the raisin grape and wine varieties. I have 

 kept from 100 to 500 colonies of bees within }4 

 to X mile of this vinery all these years, and 

 have made raisins by the carload, and honey in 

 30 to 40 ton lots at the sartie time; so I presume 

 I may write understandingly. 



One year I shut my bees in their hives four to 

 five days at a time, releasing them for an hour 

 or so just before night, closing at daylight the 

 next morning; but it was a useless labor, be- 

 cause bees came from every point of the com- 

 pass to do the same work I tried to keep mine 

 from doing. My experience tallies exactly with 

 that of the Dadants and others, who own large 

 vineyards— that bees never touch a fresh grape 



until the skin is broken by birds or some other 

 means. 



In raisin-making, the grapes are laid on trays 

 made of thin shakes 2x.'! feet square— each tray 

 holding about 20 lbs. of fresh grapes, laid one 

 laycrdeep only. In the picking and laying out, 

 more or less of the grapes are slightly loosened 

 from the stems, whence a tiny drop of the 

 sweet juice comes out; and as the trays are laid 

 out on the drying-beds, or in the rows between 

 the vines, the pickers are followed by a swarm 

 (almost) of bees, which run over the bunches 

 and speedily clean up all of these little drip- 

 pings. 



Within ten minutes after a tray is laid out to 

 dry, all the bees have left it and gone to the 

 next later picked, and so they follow the gang 

 of pickers day after day. 



The bees let the grapes alone then for about 

 ten days. When ihe upper half of each bunch 

 of grapes has turned brown, small wrinkles ap- 

 pear in the skin of the grape. As long as these 

 bunches remain dry, the bees let them alone; 

 but if a heavy dew or fog or light shower falls 

 on the grapes, early in the following morning, 

 while the skin is yet wet and soft, and while 

 the grooves in the skin furnish a chance for a 

 bee to get hold, they will tear open the skin of a 

 few of the sweetest grapes, and for several 

 days from three to fifty bees will be seen on that 

 bunch, patiently eating away at the half dried 

 grape, and keep at it until only seeds and skin 

 are left. A good-sized bunch will keep a gang 

 of bees busy over a week before it is all gone. 

 The bees act, while eating these grapes, as if 

 they were eating candy. They get Quiet, and 

 act as if half torpid, and scarcely fly when 

 brushed off. 



The loss to the raisin-maker by this is not 

 very material— furnishing only a little more 

 offal when run through the grading-machines, 

 which are large fanning-mills arranged so the 

 sieves sort out and drop the different sizes of 

 raisins into separate boxes. 



In wine-making, if conducted outdoors, the 

 cru'^hed grapes attract the bees in clouds, and 

 force the wine-maker to do the crushing in a 

 house. 



The year 1894 was exceedingly dry here; and 

 by fall, when we began making wine and rai- 

 sins, there was scarcely any honey left in the 

 hives, so the bees carried in the juice, which 

 dried in the cells into a brown, sugary mass. 

 This juice was placed around the brood, the 

 same as honey, and the next spring these combs 

 in colonies that had become disgusted with the 

 sour ill-smelling stuflp. and gone oflf to hunt a 

 sweeter and better home, were unfit to use 

 without cutting out this candied grape juice. 

 In most instances the bees carried this out like 

 candied honey; in others it was cut out and 

 rendered for its wax. I think it is a detriment 

 for bees to have access to grapes in quantities 



