THE GRAPE IN KANSAS. 117 



never saw bees tear open grapes. I have laid crushed grapes in the apiary, when* 

 the bees were not gathering, and were ravenous for stores, which, when covered 

 with sipping bees, were replaced with sound grape clusters, which in no instance 

 were mutilated. I have even shut bees in empty hives, on warm days, and closed 

 the entrance with grape clusters, which even then were not cut. I have thus- 

 been led to doubt if bees ever attack sound grapes, though quick to improve the 

 opportunities which the oriole's beak and stronger jaws of wasps offer them. 

 My friend, Professor Prentiss, suggests that when the weather is very warm and 

 damp, and the grapes very ripe, the juice may ooze through small openings of 

 the grapes, and so attract the bees. It is at just such times that attacks are ob- 

 served. I feel very certain that bees never attack sound grapes. I judge not 

 only from observation and inquiry, but from the habits of the bee. Bees never 

 bore for nectar, but seek, or even know, only of that which is fully exposed." 



The above ought to convince any one that bees do not eat or injure sound 

 grapes or fruit, although several of our intelligent correspondents seem to think 

 they do. Some of them will no doubt be surprised on reading the above, and de- 

 clare that western bees Kansas bees are a different variety, and, like the late 

 lamented colored preacher, who declared to his dying day that "the sun do move,'* 

 they will still declare that "bees eat grapes." I heard a horticulturist, at a regu- 

 lar meeting of the Douglas County Horticultural Society, declare that "bees ate 

 anything, even young ducks" ; and he added, "they would eat a dead horse and 

 polish his bones." SEC. 



REPORT ON APICULTURE. 



By NELSON McLAiN, of the United States Agricultural Station at Aurora, 111. Taken from the- 

 Report of the United States Commissioner of Agriculture, 1885. 



BEES vs. FRUIT. For the purpose of testing the capacity of bees, under excep- 

 tional circumstances, to injure fruit, we built a house sixteen feet long by ten 

 feet wide, and eight feet high at the corners. Large doors were hung in each 

 end, and a part of the sidin'g on each side was adapted to be raised up on hinges. 

 Screen doors were hung on the inside of the outer doors, and wire cloth covered 

 the openings on the sides, where the siding was raised. The house is entirely 

 bee-proof. When the sides are raised up and the outer doors opened, the tem- 

 perature and light in the house are substantially the same as outside. Along the 

 sides of the house we built shelves upon which fruit was placed so that the rays 

 of the sun might strike the different varieties in different stages of ripeness, from 

 green to dead ripe. Plates of ripe peaches, pears, plums, grapes, etc., were placed 

 on the shelves ; clusters of different kinds of grapes, green and ripe, sound and 

 imperfect, and such as had been stung by insects, were suspended from the raft- 

 ers and crossties of the house. 



The 1st of September we removed three colonies of bees from their hives, 

 carefully and quickly, so that they would carry very little honey with them when 

 transferred from one hive to another. Two of the colonies were hybrid bees, and 

 one Italian. These colonies were hived on empty combs, and placed in the house 

 with the fruit. A wood stove was put in the house, and for a number of hours' 

 each day a high temperature was maintained. The physical conditions which 

 would ordinarily prevail in nature during a protracted and severe drought were 

 artificially produced and steadily maintained. 



The bees were brought to a stage of hunger, thirst, and starvation. The 

 house was kept locked, and we carried the key. Every inducement and oppor- 



