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43 



BEES AND GRAPES. 



Another Proof that Bees do not 

 Puncture Orapeti. 



WHtttn for the American Bee Journal 

 BY H. W. LACY. 



Ou page 805 of the Bee Journal for 

 1887. I saw a statement supposed to he 

 made by Secretary Garfield, wherein 

 he states that the Secretary of the 

 Eatt)n County Horticultural Society 

 sai<l that there is uo use talking, bees 

 do open gi'apes, and that he has seen 

 them where there was no crack or 

 anything of the kind. I, for one, tlatly 

 and positively contradict that state- 

 ment. I am willing to liet five of the 

 best queens in my apiary, that no Ital- 

 ian bee ever punctured a sound gi-ape- 

 skin. I tried it the last season in dif- 

 ferent waj's, for my own benefit, as I 

 have heard it discussed by difl'erent 

 ones, and as some of my neighbors 

 thought that their crop of gi-apes would 

 be small on account of my bees. 



As I have quite a large vineyard of 

 my own, with some twelve different 

 kinds of gi'apes, I placed 6 colonies 

 amongst them in such a way that the 

 bees were all amongst the grapes ; in 

 fact it was hard work to open the hi\'es, 

 as the fruit hung so clustered about 

 them, and right before the entrances 

 of three of the hives. I had large 

 clusters of gi'apes hang in such a way 

 that the bees had to work around them 

 to get in and out of the hives. I do 

 not think that there was one grape in- 

 jured by a bee. Then on the nearest 

 bunches I caused a small scratch to be 

 made with a pin, just through the skin 

 on a few of the grapes, and they were 

 immediately sucked out by the bees. 

 Therefore, I say that a bee will not in- 

 jure grapes unless the skin is first 

 cracked in some other way. 



ReRuIts of tbe Fast Season. 



The past season was the poorest that 

 I ever experienced in bee-keeping ; jet 

 I think that my bees did as well as any 

 in this State. I commenced the season 

 with 27 colonies, spring count, in a fair 

 condition. I sold 12 colonies, and had 

 one colony stolen. I bought 14, had 9 

 swarms, and then doubled-up ray niun- 

 ber of colonies to 30, which I put into 

 winter quarters. I had 103 pounds of 

 comb honey, and 227 pounds of ex- 

 tracted. 



To those colonies which I thought 

 had not enough for winter stores, I fed 

 some granulated sugar, and so far they 

 seem to be doing well. Up to Dec. 20 

 there had not been more that five days 

 that they were not on the ning. I 

 winter my bees packed on the summer 

 stands in chaft' hives. 



Mansfield,©. Mass., Dec. 30, 1887. 



WATER. 



The Bees IVeed 'IVater for 

 Winter Use. 



Written for the American Bee Journal 

 BY T. S. BULL. 



Having a colony of bees in my cellar 

 that showed signs of uneasiness and 

 wanting to flj' out whenever the door 

 was opened, and Dec. 18, 1887, being 

 a warm day, 1 decided to carry them 

 out and put them on the summer 

 stand. By the time I had them on the 

 stand, there was a good many bees on 

 the alighting-board. They had not 

 been on the ground (I had placed them 

 on the ground) a minute, before they 

 were crawling out on the ground and 

 sipping water. They did not all fly. 

 They crawled until they came to water. 



I wet a cloth and laid it on the 

 alighting-board, and it was soon cov- 

 ered with bees. There was no sign 

 of any disease whatever. There was 

 no brood in the hive. They were as 

 healthy as bees in June. Now that was 

 conclusive evidence, to my mind at 

 least, that that colony wanted water at 

 that time. I came to the same conclu- 

 sion a number of years ago. I have 

 given the bees water in the cellar a 

 number of times, in years past, in or- 

 der to keep them quiet. The front end 

 of the hives have been covered with 

 bees in the cellar sipping water. I 

 never saw any bad effect from it. 



I never give the bees any water in 

 the cellar before February or March. 

 I put them into the cellar on Nov. 10 

 to Nov. 14. The mercury is fi'om 50° 

 to 52°. My cellar is verj- dry. The 

 next day I removed them in the cellar, 

 but before putting them back, I poured 

 about a gill of water in a division- 

 board feeder that was next to the clus- 

 ter, on Jan. 2, 1888. I examined them 

 to-day, and the feeder was dry. I never 

 saw bees more quiet than they are. 

 I also gave them some more water. 



Valparaiso, -o Ind., Jan. 7, 1888. 



BEES AND BIRDS. 



Shoot the Birds, and the Bee§ 

 will not be Blamed. 



Written for tlie American Bee Journal 

 BY O. B. BARROWS. 



I live within four blocks of the busi- 

 ness centre of a town containing about 

 9,000 people, and I have five rows of 

 Concord grape-vines, each row being 

 about 70 feet long, and .about 6 feet 

 apart. Between these rows of gi'ape- 

 vines I keep from 50 to 100 colonies of 

 bees — usually about 80 colonies — whicli 

 makes thcni (piiti' crowded, and in 



many cases the vines luuig down on 

 the hives. These vines bear grapes 

 which ripen, and some of them fre- 

 quently hang on until they are spoiled 

 by freezing, and yet 1 very seldom see 

 bees on the grapes ; while at the out- 

 skirts of the town they complain of 

 their grape crop being almost entirely 

 destroyed by bees. 



One of these gi-ape-growers com- 

 plained to a friend of mine, about it, 

 and for a joke he told the man that 

 they were Barrows' bees, and that he 

 had them tr.ained so that they would 

 not touch a grape at home. I confess 

 that I was puzzled about it, but upon 

 appealing to another friend who raises 

 grapes, but not bees,he said that where 

 I lived a certain kind of bird did not 

 frequent, that did frequent the other 

 place, and that when the bees com- 

 menced on his grapes, he shot three or 

 four of the birds, and the bees imme- 

 diately stopped eating the gi-apes. 



Marshalltown,© Iowa. 



[The bees are blamed wrongfully as 

 well as persistently by those who will 

 not think and experiment, and thereby 

 be convinced. Birds, wasps and in- 

 sects do the damage in every instance, 

 and yet the poor bees are almost uni- 

 versally blamed for all the depreda- 

 tions. Why not be fair and reasona- 

 ble, and do justice to the bees ? — Ed.] 



FOUL BROOD. 



Keeping; Bees in Texas, and 

 Treating Foul Brood. 



Written for the American Bee Journal 

 BY C. M. DAVIS. 



I take great pleasure in reading the 

 Bee Journal. Bees have done fairly 

 well in northern Texas the past season. 

 I have been keeping a few colonies in 

 this thriving city for three years, and 

 the past season was the first that I 

 have received a profit from them. I 

 made about enough to pay for all pre- 

 vious expenses, and I think that if my 

 bees had not been troubled wath foul 

 l3i;ood, I might have had much better 

 results. 



In the spring of 1886 I found that all 

 of my bees had the foul brood. I tried 

 phenol, but failed to cure it ; after 

 which I (-leansed the hives, etc., and 

 transferred all, which seemed to get 

 rid of the disease, and they seemed to 

 be all healthy last spring. But to my 

 surprise, the last of July I found ever}- 

 colony affected, and very weak in bees. 

 Some swarmed out, and what was left 

 I have doubled up to 6 colonies. In 

 August I had 18 colonies. I think that 

 thev got it from some neighbor's bees. 



