116 THE GRAPE IN KANSAS. 



every vineyard a number of ripe grapes were eaten by bees, and the grape 

 growers in our vicinity were so positively certain that the bees were guilty, that 

 they held a meeting to petition the state legislature for a law preventing any one 

 from owning more than ten hives of bees. This serious charge called our atten- 

 tion to the matter, and we decided to make a thorough investigation in our own 

 vineyard. But, although many bees were seen banqueting on grapes, not one 

 was doing any mischief to the sound fruit. Grapes which were bursted on the 

 vines or lying on the ground, and the moist stems from which grapes had re- 

 cently been plucked, were covered with bees ; while other bees were observed to 

 alight upon bunches which, when found by careful inspection to be sound, they 

 left with evident disappointment. Wasps and hornets, which secrete no wax, 

 toeing furnished with strong, saw-like jaws for cutting the woody fiber with 

 which they build their combs, can easily penetrate the skin of the toughest 

 fruit. While the bees, therefore, appeared to be comparatively innocent, multi- 

 tudes of these depredators were seen helping themselves to the best of the 

 .grapes. Occasionally a bee would presume to alight on a bunch where one of 

 these pests was operating for his own benefit, when the latter would turn and 

 -'show fight,' much after the fashon of a snarling dog molested by another of his 

 -species while daintily discussing his own private bone. 



"During grape picking, the barrels in which our grapes were hauled to the 

 wine-cellar were covered with a cloud of bees feeding on the damaged clusters, 

 and they followed the wagon to the cellar. After removing the barrels to a place 

 of safety, we left one bunch of sound grapes on the wagon, puncturing one of the 

 grapes with a pin. This bunch, being the only one remaining exposed, was at 

 once so covered with a swarm of bees that it was entirely hidden from sight. It 

 was three o'clock in the afternoon. At sunset the bees were all gone, excepting 

 three, who were too exhausted to fly off. The bunch had lost its bloom ; the 

 grapes were shiny, but entirely sound. The one punctured grape had a slight 

 depression at the pin-hole, showing that the bees had sucked all the juice they 

 could reach, but they had not even enlarged the hole. We also placed bunches 

 of sound grapes inside of some four or five hives of bees, directly over the frames, 

 and three weeks after we found that the bees had glued them fast to the combs, 

 as they glue up anything they cannot get rid of, but the grapes were perfectly 

 intact. 



"Mr. McLain, in charge of the United States agricultural station, was in- 

 structed to test this matter thoroughly by shutting up bees with sound fruit, 

 and the result was the same as in our case. [See elsewhere.] The main dam- 

 age to grapes is done by birds ; hence, the borders of a large vineyard are first to 

 suffer, especially when in proximity to hedges, orchards, or timber. Even in 

 small cities the number of birds that feed on fruit is extraordinary, and one can 

 have no idea of their depredations until he has watched for them at daybreak, 

 which is the time best suited to their pilfering. After the mischief has been 

 'begun by them or by insects, or wherever a crack or spot of decay is seen, the 

 honey-bee hastens to help itself, on the principle of 'gathering up the frag- 

 ments, that nothing may be lost.' In this way they undoubtedly do some mis- 

 chief, but they are, on the whole, far more useful than injurious." 



From "Bee Keeper's Guide," by A. J. Cook, 1899. 

 "Bees gather juices of questionable repute from grapes and other fruit which 

 have been crushed, or eaten and torn, by wasps and other insects. That bees 

 ever tear grapes is a question of which I have failed to receive any personal proof, 

 though for years I have been carefully seeking it. I have lived among the vine- 

 yards of California, and have often watched bees about vines in Michigan, but 



