530 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL,. 



hopelessly queenless for four or five 

 days before giving a cell. If left a week 

 or more, laying workers begin to appear, 

 and they are perfect nuisances." (R. 

 C. Aikin, in Review, April, May and 

 June, 1892. See also an article in 

 Review for May, 1891, page 125.) 



"The success of the apiarist lies in 

 having only strong colonies to gather 

 honey, the stronger the better. Con- 

 centrate that strength ; instead of run- 

 ning the same bees in two hives, run 

 them in one, and it brings in the sur- 

 plus. It takes but few bees to run a 

 brood-chamber and make a colony suffi- 

 cient to winter over, but three to five 

 times as many are needed before they 

 can do good work in the supers." (R. 

 C. Aikin, in Review for May, 1892.) 



"This is not all theory with me. By 

 observing Doolittle's teachings, to have 

 a hive full of bees during the honey-flow, 

 I have not failed, save once in 15 years, 

 to get a fair crop of honey. I seldom 

 get less than 50 pounds, and usually 

 75 to 100, and one season 227 pounds 

 as an average per colony, spring CQunt." 

 (R. C. Aikin, in Review iov June, 1891.) 



Knoxville, Tenn. 



Again the C^uestion, '« Can Bees 

 Puncture Fruit?" 



WritUn for the American Bee Journal 

 BY E. S. LOVESY. 



This is a question that is greatly agi- 

 tating both the bee-keepers and the 

 fruit-growers. If would be a relief to a 

 great many people if some definite con- 

 clusion can be arrived at in this matter ; 

 especially will it be so to bee-keepers, if 

 the bee is exonerated from the vicious 

 attacks made upon it by fruit-growers 

 and others. 



Some of those people assert positively 

 that the bees can, and do, break into 

 the fruit. Mr. Stockwell, on page 759 

 of the Amekican Bee Journal for June, 

 1893, says that they can, but don't. He 

 says the fruit has no attraction for the 

 bees, and asserts that they can eat hard 

 wood ; that he has heard them doing it, 

 and that he had opened the hive and 

 proved it. 



I have known people that killed bees 

 by closing up the entrance, and the hives 

 had cracks in them, but not quite large 

 enough for the bees to squeeze through. 

 Now if they can so readily chaw hard 

 wood, why did they not eat their way 

 out, as the mice eat their way in ? On 

 the other hand, many bee-keepers and 



others assert just as positively, and just 

 as vigorously, that bees cannot, and do 

 not, injure fruit. The following is what 

 the Indiana bee-keepers say in their 

 convention : 



^'■Resolved, That it is the sense of the 

 Indiana bee-keepers, that it is an impos- 

 sibility for bees to puncture grapes or 

 injure them." 



The following, which exonerates the 

 honey-bee, was taken from one of our 

 local papers : 



THE HONEY-BEE EXONERATED. 



"Exhaustive experiments have been 

 conducted under the auspices of the de- 

 partment of agriculture to decide if the 

 honey-bees are deserving of the severe 

 condemnation received in some quarters 

 from fruit-growers. Neither care nor 

 expense was withheld. Hives were kept 

 within a building from which the bees 

 could not escape. In this grapes, 

 peaches, pears and plums, varying from 

 green to dead ripe, were placed. The 

 bees were deprived of food, and left with 

 the fruit exposed. Many came to the 

 fruit, but never broke the skin ; but 

 when they found it broken they fed upon 

 the exuding juice. They showed no 

 tendency to use their jaws in cutting 

 open a place. 



" The test lasted 30 days; other bees 

 were tried with similar results. In all 

 cases food was taken only from fruit 

 which had been previously broken. 

 Consequently it appears that bees will 

 not injure sound fruit. Professor Pan- 

 ton, of the Ontario Agricultural College, 

 says that this is what might have been 

 expected when the structure of the bee's 

 mouth is considered. It is quite differ- 

 ent in the case of wasps, which are sup- 

 plied with jaws suitable to break into 

 the skin, and in all probability they are 

 the cause of the injured fruit upon which 

 complaining observers have seen bees 

 feeding." 



Salt Lake City, Utah. 



The " Shoe-String Binder " for 

 Preserving Bee-Papers. 



Written for the Ameriecm Bee Journal 

 BY W. A. CAMPBELL. 



In reply to a request, received by 

 mail, for a description of the "shoe- 

 string binder," which I referred to on 

 page 184, it is with pleasure that I send 

 Dr. Miller's own description in Glean- 

 ings, which will make plain the manner 



