May, 1909,] 



453 



BEE KEEPING. 



BEES DO NOT INJURE SOUND 

 FRUIT. 



An Interesting Exhibit at a Fair, 

 consisting op Ripe Fruit in a 

 Glass Hive containing Bees. 



By Joel Gilfillan. 



At the Grangers' Fair, held this year 

 in Wilmington, Del., I had charge again 

 of the Bee Department. Besides the ex- 

 hibit of honey (comb and extracted) and 

 wax, I had a series of observatory hives 

 exhibiting the various conditions and 

 workings of the bees from the time a 

 swarm was first hived until the harvest 

 of honey was taken off. These were 

 similar to the ones of the preceding year, 

 the illustrations of which were published 

 in the November 1st issue, 1907. There 

 was one hive of a different character, 

 which created something of a sensation. 

 This one is shown by the accompanying 

 engraving. It was a three-story glass 

 hive, the upper story containing ripe 

 fruit, a bunch of grapes, a pear, and a 

 peach. At the time the picture was taken 

 it was a little cold, and the bees were 

 clustering on the combs ; but nearly all 



the time during the four days of the 

 Fair the bees were freely moving about 

 among and over the fruit. There was 

 a card on the hive, upon which was 

 written, "Bees do not injure sound 

 fruit." On the second day of the Fair 

 one of the grapes on the bunch burst 

 open, and the bees set to work and soon 

 cleaned it up, and that empty grape 

 skin hung there among the sound grapes 

 during the remaining days of the Fair, 

 speaking louder than any voice. Men 

 would stop before this exhibit and 

 ponder a long time and then turn away 

 with the remark, "Well, that settles the 

 question." Sometimes a few would rush 

 past without taking time to read the 

 card, and say as they passed, "There, 

 that shows how the bees get honey from 

 fruit." One very wise felllow, who was 

 leading a company around, and who 

 was quick to read the cards on the 

 hives, and who tried to be very wise, 

 began describing this one before he 

 reached it, saying, "Now here we have 

 a clear demonstration of how the bees 

 make honey from fruit." By this time 

 he had read the card, and he merely 

 said, "Oh!" and concluded it was time 

 to pass on to other departments of the 

 Fair. — Gleanings in Bee Culture, Vol. 

 XXXVII., No. 4, February 15th, 1909. 



SCIENTIFIC AGRICULTURE. 



INOCULATION OF LEGUMINOUS 

 CROPS. 



In view of the fact that the cultivation 

 of leguminous crops under suitable con- 

 ditions offers a means of enriching the 

 soil with nitrogen, and that this power 

 of assimilating atmospheric nitrogen is 

 due to the presence and action of nodule- 

 forming bacteria on the roots of these 

 plants, it would seem, at first sight, a 

 comparatively easy matter to ensure 

 the presence of the bacteria, and the 

 consequent production of crops of 

 greater value, by inoculating the soil 

 with the organisms in question. A con- 

 siderable amount of experimental work 

 on this subject has been carried out in 

 the United States, in Germany, Canada, 

 and— quite recently— in England, but 

 the results attained, speaking generally, 

 have not, so far, been by any means of 

 so promising a nature as was at one time 

 anticipated. Some trials, it may be men- 

 tioned, too, have lately beerf made at 

 Antigua and Grenada, under the direc- 



tion of this Department, and it is hoped 

 shortly to publish a note on the results 



" Cultures of bacteria for inoculation, 

 purposes have at different times been 

 prepared and sent out in a number of 

 different forms, one of the latest being 

 that known as ' Nitro-Bacterine,' devised 

 by Professor Bottomley of King's College, 

 London. Experiments with this mate- 

 rial were carried out by the Royal 

 Horticultural Society at the Wisley 

 Gardens, England, during the summer 

 of 1908, the soil of these Gardens being 

 of the kind where inoculation might be 

 expected to have a good effect. An ex- 

 haustive report on this experimental 

 work is contributed by Mr. F. J. Chit- 

 tenden, p.l.s., to the Journal of the 

 Society for November last (Volume 

 XXXIV, Part II), from which it appears 

 that from no point of view did inocula- 

 tion prove to have a beneficial effect." 



The following summary of the results 

 is given at the end of Mr. Chittenden's 

 report :— 



