Bees and Grapes, -i^yj 



from the maple and other trees and plants also furnishes 

 them sweets. They gather juices of questionable repute 

 from about cider mills, some from grapes and other fruit 

 which have been crushed or eaten and torn by wasps and 

 other insects. That bees ever tear the grapes is a question of 

 which I have failed to receive any personal proof, though foi 

 years I have been carefully seeking it. I have lived among 

 the vineyards of California, and have often watched bees 

 about vines in Michigan, but never saw bees tear open 

 the gi-apes. 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 i-eplaced 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 evei 

 attack sound grapes, though quick to improve the oppor- 

 tunities which the oriole's beak and the stronger jaws oJ 

 wasps offer them. My friend. Prof. Prentiss, suggests 

 that when the weather is very warm and damp, and the 

 grapes very ripe, the juice may ooze through small open- 

 ings of the grapes and so attract the bees. It is at just 

 such times that attacks are observed. 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. Sees never bore for nectar but seek, or even know 

 only of that ivhich is fully exposed. Still, Dr. C. V. 

 Riley feels sure that bees are sometimes thus -guilty, and 

 Mr. Bidwell tells me he has seen bees rend sound grapes, 

 which they did with their feet. Yet, if this is the case, it 

 is certainly of rare occurrence, and is more than compen- 

 sated by the great aid which the bees afford the fruit- 

 grower in the great work of cro^s-fertilization, which is 

 imperatively necessary to his success, as has been so well 

 shown by Dr. Asa Gray and Mr. Chas. Darwin. It is 

 true that cross-fertilization of the flowers, which can only 

 be accomplished by insects, and early in the season by the 

 honey-1 Oj, is often, if not always, necessary to a full yield 

 of fruit and vegetables. In diecious plants, like the willows 

 and most nut-bearing trees, the stamens that bear the pollen 



