10 BEEKEEPING 



attacked by bees, that they nearly all be- 

 lieve it. They will even prove it to you 

 by confining some perfect fruit in a cage 

 with a lot of bees and call your attention 

 to the fact that the fruit remains un- 

 touched. If any of the fruit is punctured 

 so that the juices are easily obtained, the 

 confined bees quickly attack it. In gen- 

 eral this condition of things prevails in 

 the orchard. It is not often that bees 

 will deliberately attack perfect fruit on 

 the trees, but I am absolutely certain that 

 they do this sometimes. I have repeat- 

 edly seen them set to work on the tip end 

 of a perfectly sound peach that was fully 

 ripe and claw and suck at the tender skin 

 until they had made an opening. This, 

 however, merely by way of argument; I 

 realize that from a practical standpoint 

 bees do not injure fruit on the tree. 

 There are two reasons, however, why they 

 do not : In the first place there is usually 

 enough fruit with injured skin on which 

 they can work easily; and in the second 



