320 MISCELLANEOUS INFORMATION. [Ch. vi. 



stantly within view, either from the dining-room, or of 

 tliose whose duties oblige them to be near the apiary. 

 If we had not happened to be at hand at the moment 

 this colony started, it would have been irretrievably lost to 

 us, as is the case with many swarms and colonies simply be- 

 cause the departure takes place without any one to witness. 

 In the season of 1865 wasps were as few as they were 

 numerous the preceding year ; their paucity was attiri- 

 butable either to frosts in May or to heavy rains in June, 

 which destroyed them in their nests. In general wasps 

 are great depredators of wall-fruit, but in the autumn 

 before mentioned the bees occupied the wasps' foraging- 

 ground. Perhaps never in the memory of bee-keepers 

 did bees feast upon fruit in the same manner. Various 

 reasons have been assigned for this unusual occurrence ; 

 some thought that as there were so few wasps the bees 

 were unmolested, and enjoyed the saccharine matter in 

 the fruit without let or hindrance — for bees are about as 

 partial to the company of wasps as mice are to that of 

 rats. Other bee-keepers remarked the sudden and early 

 termination of the honey-gathering, and conjectured that 

 the bees, being anxious to make up their winter store, 

 endeavoured to bring home nectar from the fruit because 

 the weather was unusually fine. There was one feature 

 which is worth remarking : as far as our observation 

 extended, the bees did not, like the wasps, break the 

 skin of sound fruit, but were satisfied with lapping the 

 juice of the ripe fruit that had the skin already broken. 



