THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



617 



" Young America." The hard winter 

 of 1883-84 killed all of his bees, and 

 he informed me that he should not 

 commence again, as the Yankees 

 were making comb honey by machin- 

 ery, and a bee had no chance ! As in 

 days of old, such is the ignorance of 

 a certain portion of mankind. 

 Disco,<x Mich., Sept. 20, 1887. 



Prairie Farmer. 



ProTiile Pasturage for tlie Bees. 



MRS. L. HARBISON. 



No farmer or stock-raiser would 

 think of keeping sheep, cattle, or 

 horses without a pasture or range for 

 stock ; if some apology for a farmer 

 should try to do so, he would be ac- 

 counted a fool , or a trifling, shiftless 

 fellow. It is equally unwise to build 

 up a large apiary without providing 

 pasture or forage for bees. It is true 

 that if your neighbor has good pas- 

 ture for them, your winged stock can 

 enjoy it without being impounded, 

 nor will you run the risk of being 

 sued for trespass ; but if there is no 

 good bee-pasture within a reasonable 

 distance of your apiary (1)^ or 2 miles) 

 you must provide the same, if you 

 nope to ever receive any shekels from 

 the production of honey; and this is 

 the way to provide it : 



If you have land, plant of raspber- 

 ries from J^ to }^ of an acre. There 

 are many good varieties, perhaps none 

 better than the " Queen of the Mar- 

 ket." The fruit for family use will 

 Eay you for the trouble, and the 

 oney that your bees will gather will 

 repay you. Sow upon any good, dry 

 pasture land, white or Dutch clover 

 with blue grass or red top; this 

 makes a quality of feed relished by 

 stock, and of unsurpassed excellence, 

 and your bees will gather from the 

 clover blossoms a nectar " fit for the 

 gods." 



If you have any broken or detached 

 pieces of ground, separated by creeks 

 or ravines from the main body of 

 your land, plant upon the same a 

 grove of basswood or American lin- 

 den (Tilia Americana). The tree grows 

 to a large size, and the blossoms 

 yield, in many seasons, profusely of 

 honey. As an ornamental shade tree, 

 it is surpassed by few. 



Sow of buckwheat (the silver skin 

 variety) the last of May any pieces or 

 corners of ground you may have to 

 the extent of one acre ; it will keep 

 down the weeds, the straw is a val- 

 uable fertilizer for the ground, and 

 the bloom will be in its prime for 

 bees during the last of July, when 

 there is ordinarily a scarcity of bee- 

 forage. Sow again the lirst of July of 

 buckwheat for a grain crop. 



Sweet clover [Melilotus alba) is one 

 of our very best honey-plants ; com- 

 ing into bloom in July, it continues 

 to blossom until fro^t, and yields 

 very largely of honey of the very best 

 quality. It is a biennial, does not 

 bloom the first year, and at the close 

 of the second year dies, root and 

 branch. Bee-keepers can put rough, 

 broken ground to no b'jtter use than 

 to sow it to sweet clove,:. 



There has been a diversity of opin- 

 ion as to whether bees gather honey 

 from corn, or pollen only. For many 

 years we have annually had a piece 

 of sugar-corn in our garden, and from 

 personal observation are satisfied that 

 when the weather and electric con- 

 ditions are right, bees gather consid- 

 erable honey from it. The sweet, 

 rich, succulent roaating-ears are a 

 luxury ; and any one who has fed the 

 stalks to horses or cattle, and seen 

 the gusto with which they devour 

 them, and noticed their beneficial 

 effects, will certify to the great value 

 of sweet-corn fodder. Therefore, plant 

 an acre or more of sweet corn (better 

 more than less). 



Goldenrod, if not present in your 

 locality, may be introduced, and en- 

 couraged to grow along the roadsides, 

 and the careful apiarist, who thus 

 assists the busy little workers, may 

 rest assured that he will be amply 

 rewarded, by abundant stores of na- 

 ture's own confection. 



Peoria,© Ills. 



For the American Bee Journal. 



Do Bees Puncture (jrapes ? 



MAHALA B. CHADDOCK. 



I have heard more complaints this 

 year than ever before, about bees eat- 

 ing grapes. It has been so dry that 

 the bees have had nothing to gather 

 since the fourth crop of white clover, 

 until the grapes began to ripen. I 

 have stood by the bees as well as I 

 know how, lighting their battles for 

 them over and over again. 



The other day a woman that was 

 picking grapes here, said : "Why, 

 see here, Mahala, here the bees are 

 eating your own grapes. You believe 

 it now, don't you y" and I went over 

 the same old arguments to her. I 

 know that not one person in a hun- 

 dred believes what I say, but I go on 

 saying it to all and sundry, just the 

 same. 



Vermont,KD Ills. 



[The weather, drouth, birds and 

 wasps, etc., are always the cause of 

 the grape-skins being opened— then 

 the bees will make short work of 

 sucking up the juice. We will here 

 quote a few authorities to prove our 

 assertion. Dr. S. S. Rathvon, the 

 learned editor of the Lancaster Farmer, 

 a paper of excellent scope and char- 

 acter, and devoted to the highest in- 

 terests of agriculture and horticul- 

 ture, remarks as follows : 



I have grown grapes (Isabellas, 

 Clintons, Concords, Ilartford Pro- 

 litics, Marthas. Delawares) upon my 

 premises for thirty years, and yet I 

 have never observed a bee cutting or 

 tearing open any of them 



I have not conversed with a single 

 person who says he ever saw a bee in 

 the act of cutting open grapes. But 

 the grapes are found ruptured, and 

 the bees at work upon them, and >hat 

 seems to be the bulk of the testimony. 



Mr. Charles R. Muth, Secretary of 

 the Cincinnati Entomological Society, 

 has made observations and experi- 

 ments, and his testimony is very 

 weighty. He says : 



If you lay a ripe bunch of grapes 

 with sound berries in front of the 

 hive, with the entrance thereto con- 

 tracted to J^ or to }4 of an inch, so 

 that every bee going out or coming 

 home will have to run over or around 

 the bunch, you will notice that they 

 try their very best to attack the 

 grapes, while yet every berry remains 

 intact. 



He found the same to be true of a 

 sound, ripe Bartlett pear. After he 

 had satisfied himself of the inability 

 of bees to penetrate the skin of the 

 grape, he then punctured each berry 

 with a pin, and in an hour or two 

 nothing remained but the skins and 

 the stem. 



Some persons aver that the bees 

 sting the grapes, and thus puncture 

 the skins, thereby destroying the 

 fruit; but the following from a lecture 

 delivered by Prof. F. W. Tustin, be- 

 fore the Lewisburg, (Pa.) Scientific 

 Society, will set the matter to rest. 

 He says : 



The sting of the bee is an organ in 

 its structure, and in its use, quite 

 different from the mandibles. It is 

 situated in the posterior part of the 

 body, and is a finely pointed instru- 

 ment with an open tube extending 

 along its entire length. At the root 

 of the sting is a little sac in which is 

 contained the poisonous fluid, which 

 the bee injects through this tube into 

 the wound which it may have made. 

 The object here is to provide the in- 

 sect with the necessary means of self- 

 defense when it is exasperated or 

 attacked, and so far as is known, it is 

 only under these circumstances that 

 the sting is used. It is strictly an organ 

 of defense, and in no way used as a 

 means to assist in the gathering of the 

 food. When the stiug is used, it 

 simply punctures the surface to 

 which it is applied, unless that sur- 

 face should be powerful enough to 

 resist the fine point of the sting. So 

 that with reference to the question 

 before us, the opinion is generally 

 held, that in their ravages upon 

 grapes, if bees ever do tear open the 

 skin, they certainly do not and cannot 

 do this with their sting, this organ 

 having no power to tear or cut open, 

 but only to penetrate or puncture easily 

 yielding substances. 



I have never seen the bee in the act 

 of tearing open the skin of a sound 

 grape, although I have seen repeated 

 instances, of one and indeed several 

 bees together luxuriating upon the 

 sweet juices of a Delaware or a Con- 

 cord. 



And so far as I have been able to 

 correspond with them, I find that the 

 authorities upon this subject quite 

 unanimously agree, that there is no 

 evidence against the bee, that it tears 



