18S6.J 



THE LANCASTER FARMER. 



131 



bloom, tlic foliage and the fruit of trees, 

 slunbs and plants, yet the Scarabeans, which 

 includes the Aplwdian.s, never are, and I 

 make this record because!, wlicn we know that 

 which is not, we have made one step towards 

 Hint wliichis. 



DO BEES INJURE FRUIT? 



A Question that is to the Point— The Bee 



Family— They do not Sting, but can Cut 



Fruit. 



"This is a question frequently asked, and 

 when the answers are given they do not 

 always agree. A resident of North Duke 

 street don't care for linely spun theories 

 about this subject, for he i.s fully convinced 

 by daily ob.servation that bees do hurt the 

 fi'uit. Upon his premises they have injured 

 to a great extent both his grape and peach 

 crops, and they were the Italian bees, too. " 



Every year during the last decade, the 

 question of bees injuring fruit becomes one of 

 animated discussion, and continues such, as 

 long as the bees and the fruit continue, and 

 then nothing is heard of it agaiu until the 

 following Season. The foregoing paragraph 

 is quoted from the columns of the Examiner 

 of the 30th of August, and although many 

 others of a similar character have appeared in 

 different papers, yet as they did not generally 

 state the case so distinctly as this, we did 

 not deem them sufficiently explicit as a text 

 "Do bees hurt (or injure) the fruit V" is not 

 an ambiguous question, and will not admit of 

 an ambiguous answer — it is immediately to 

 the point. " Do bees stuiij fruit i"' according 

 to the popular and most obvious understand- 

 ing of a bee sting, admits of a ([ualificd, if not 

 of an apparently caviling answer. What is 

 the ostensible purpose of a bee, in stinging ? 

 Bees, like wasps and hornets, sting in self- 

 defense, but that is not all. They beoome 

 angered, exasperated, enraged and sting 

 aggressively ; but it is questionable whether 

 they ever sting without, for some cause, 

 having been previouslj' exasperated. A bee, 

 a hornet, or a yellow-jacket will enter your 

 open window, alight upon your table, invade 

 your sugar bowl, your fruit disli, or your 

 molasses cup and never once think of stinging 

 you, even if they should alight on your sugar- 

 bedaubed hands ; but attempt to forcibly re- 

 tain or restrain one of them, and he will sting 

 you in a "jiffy." Why? Because you assail 

 him, and he defends himself — you exasperate 

 him, and he avenges himself. A bee would 

 be no more likely to sling a grape, an apple, a 

 pear, or a peach, than it would a board, a 

 stone, an iron wedge, or an earthen pot. 

 Then what would it do ? That might depend 

 on circumstances, but prior to that, is, per- 

 haps, the question what could it do ? 



To use a grammar term, let us parse tlie 

 bee, in order to get at its position in scientific 

 classification, and its relation to other insects 

 to which it is allied generically. It belongs 

 to the order Hymenoptera, which means 

 membrane-K'inyed insects ; sub.section Melli- 

 fera, honey gatherers ; family Apiariaaj, from 

 Apj's, a bee ; Genus, Apis ; species, melUfica, 

 from honey. Among other caaracteristics, 

 the order Hymenoptera is distinguislied by its 

 subjects being provided with a pair of M'lndi- 

 hles, which means jaws ; a pair of Maxillcp, 

 auxiliary feeding members, a labrian, or upper 

 Up ; a labium or under lip, which is elongated, 

 and, together with the Maxilhp, forms a kind 

 of tongue, or sucker, capable of exiension 

 and contraction, and is employed in collect- 

 ing honey from flowers, or wherever else it 

 may be found. Bees, in common with all the 

 subjects belonging to this order, possess these 

 members, and some of them — especially those 

 employed in collecting honey — in a more per- 

 fect degree than any of their cogeners. From 

 the foregoing it will be observed that bees are 

 mandibulated insects— they have jaws, and in 

 all insects that are provided with jaws, all 

 their cutting and boring is done with their 

 jaws — even the curcuUos cut through the 

 skins of the apples, peaches and plums with 

 their jaws — they have no sting, and yet it i» 



erroneously said "they sting the fruit." It 

 is true, there is a family of Hymenopterous in- 

 sects, some of the species of which have their 

 stings, or ovipositors modified into a rasp or 

 saw, for tlie purpose of making incisions, 

 into which they deposit tlieir egi;s. but their 

 jaws are still more formidable, anil they use 

 "them more efiectually. 



To judge what the bee is likely to be capa- 

 ble of doing we will cite some of the charac- 

 teristics of his cogeners of the same family. 

 The genus Bombus, which embraces the 

 Ilumble-beis (or "Biuuble-bees" as they are 

 more commonly called,) are Apiariic, and 

 their mandibular power is very apparent— to 

 me at least— for many a one has cut his way 

 through the walls of a trumi)et tlower, in 

 which I had trapped him. The genus Xi/lo- 

 copa, wood-borers, have extraordinary man- 

 dibular power, for it is with their jaws 

 they cut those long galleries in dry pine 

 and other woods, and if these galleries are 

 minutely examined it will be perci:ived that 

 their instruments must be in good cutting 

 order. The genus Mcyachilc comprises tho 

 leaf-cutting bees, and anyone who has ob- 

 served these insects cutting circular pieces 

 out of their rose-leaves, and the facility with 

 which it is accomplished, must be convinced 

 of their mandibular power, for their jaws are 

 their sole cutting instruments. The genus 

 Osmia, of the same family, includes the 

 Mason-bees. They detach and scrape up 

 grains of sand with their jaws, and with 

 these and a mucous fluid which they void, 

 they construct almost imperishable cells in 

 the crevices of walls. The genus Andrma 

 resembles the hive-bee, but is much smaller; 

 they dig holes into the hard ground and con- 

 struct cells therein, and this work is done 

 with their jaws. The genera Coeloxys and 

 Nomada, belonging to this family, are a kind 

 of loafers and make no nests of their own, 

 but lay their eggs in the nests of other bees, 

 especially in the nests of Andrena. Now, 

 these are the generic allies of onr honey bees, 

 and they are very similar to them in organic 

 structure, and if it be true, that "tell me who 

 your company is, and I'll tell you what you 

 are;" their character is at least suspicious. 

 Still, although we may have a right to con- 

 clude that bees have sufficient mandibular 

 power to cut the skin of a thoroughly ripe 

 grape, plum, peach or apple, we may not 

 have the right to infer that they possess that 

 power to the same extent that their cogen- 

 ers do. 



The testimony against them in this respect 

 is too general and too respectable to be ignored 

 by their zealous friends, and yet it is po,ssible 

 that much of this testimony may be super- 

 ficial. For nearly thirty years I have been 

 growing graps — Isabellas, Clintons, Concords, 

 Hartford Prolifics, Marthas and Delawares, 

 and yet I cannot say that during all that 

 time I ever saw a bee in the act of cutting the 

 skins of any of them. Bees were about nearly 

 all the time after the fruit ripened, and where 

 there was a ruptured or a partially decayed 

 one, the bees would be busily engaged extract- 

 ing all the nectar they could from them, but I 

 never saw them puncture or cut the skin of 

 one. But this by by no means proves that 

 they could not do so, or tvoidd not do so else- 

 where, or under other circumstances. I have 

 enclosed bees in the flowers of the "Morning- 

 Glory," and in many instances I have known 

 them to cut their way out. They have not 

 always done so, but they have done it often 

 enough to show that they can do it. On one 

 occasion last summer, in company with Mr. 

 Stauffer, we watched a bee nearly half an 

 hour, apparently girdling the leaf stem of a 

 hawthorn, and when driven away we found it 

 had made a very sensible impression upon it — 

 suflicient at least to break the skin of a grape 

 or peach when fully ripe. 



But, taken all together, is the proportion of 

 grapes and other fruits destroyed by bees, as 

 compared with the entire bulk ot these fruits, 

 sufficient in magnitude to warrant a general 

 destruction of the bees, or even to justify all 

 the complaints that are made about them"? A 



man who has an Apiary must surely be com- 

 pensated in honey beyond anything he will be 

 able to realize out of his grai)e juice, tliere- 

 I'ore his complaints are selfish and unreason- 

 able, and he ought to be ashamed to make 

 them. Of course it is not so pleasant to those 

 who have jio bees and whose grapes fall a prey 

 to the bees of their neighbors ; and in this 

 connection it is cpiestionable whether it can 

 be considered a fair t ling for people— in cities 

 and towns especially— to keep large stocks of 

 bees who do not furnish the wherewith to 

 feed them. It is not fair for their bees to be 

 constantly trespassing upon the premises of 

 their neighbors. Under any circumstances 

 the fault i» not with the bees. True to the 

 instincts of their nature they will be gather- 

 iuic and storing up honey and wax, and man 

 avails himself of the benefits of their labors. 

 These complaints against bees destroying 

 grapes and other fruit did not exist forty, 

 thirty, or even twenty years ago, to one- 

 twentieth the extent that "they do now. For 

 more than fifty years the trees, shrubs and 

 plants from which bees gathered honey, have 

 been decreasing in number, and apiculture, 

 all over the country, has been increasing. 

 The bees are here, not of their own accord, 

 but were brought here, and every means ap- 

 plied to make them increase in number and 

 efliciency, with perhaps little general regard 

 paid to honey-bearing plants. Largely im- 

 bued with the instinct of industry they mVZ not 

 be idle, and hence they rcill gather honey 

 wherever they can find it — out of flowers if 

 they can, but out of grapes, peaches, pears, 

 plums and apples if they must. Go to any 

 cider or wino-press at the proper season and 

 you will find thousands of "busy bees" pur- 

 suing their noble occupation. Go to any 

 bearing apple or peach orchard, where de- 

 cayed, cracked, or worthless fruit is permitted 

 to lie on the ground, and you find the bees 

 also there. Go to any sugar and molasses 

 warehouses or grocery store, and you will find 

 them in goodly numbers there. Go to any 

 private family that makes their own apple- 

 butter and cans their own fruit, and you will 

 find it the same. It is life or death with them 

 and ihey can't help it. The equilibrium of 

 nature is destroyed, <ind they are thrown 

 back upon whatever resources may present 

 themselves to them. Perhaps there are few 

 people who grow grapes that would be un- 

 willing to partition off" a liberal quantity to 

 the bees ; but they are like the restless adven- 

 turers of the far West, who disregard the 

 rights of "reservation"— they will trespass — 

 and to make matters still worse, it is said 

 they will pass from one cluster of grapes to 

 another, damaging many without wholly con- 

 suming any. If people will dot keep their 

 bees at home we must "grin and bear." It 

 would be cruel to resort to slaughter. 



THE BI-CENTENNIAL OF PENNSYL- 

 VANIA. 



The year 1882 will complete the second 

 century since the founding of our Common- 

 wealth by William Penn;and it is desirable 

 that we shall adopt measm-es in time to secure 

 a proper celebiation of this event. A .society 

 has been organized for this purpose under the 

 title of the Bi-Centenni.al Association of Penn- 

 sylvania, and at its second meeting the fol- 

 lowing appeal to the citizens of the State waa 

 presented by the President, and ordered to be 

 placed on the minutes : — 



"The first centeiuiial of the foundation of 

 Pennsylvania by AVilliam Penn took place 

 just at the close "of the American Revolution. 

 The British had evacuated Savaimah on the 

 11th of July, 17S-2. This was followed by the 

 evacuation of Charleston on the lllh of De- 

 cember of the same year, and on the previous 

 30th of November a preliminary treaty of 

 peace between the Colonies and Great Bri- 

 tain was signed. The preparations for recon- 

 ciliation, reconstruction, for a new National 

 Constitution, and for the first Presidential 

 election, called for so much general joy and 

 concentrated co-operation, that our ancestors 

 had no time to indulge in State organizations 



