BEES—DO THEY ATTACK FRUIT? 
113 
Apricots damaged by birds; fruits thus injured are sucked dry by bees, which store the juice as honey. 
of grapes are raised every year, the 
bunches hanging within three or four feet 
of the entrance of the hives, the sound 
fruit is never injured; but. during a 
dearth of honey, a broken or otherwise 
bruised bunch of grapes w T ill often be visit¬ 
ed by a few bees. 
But a casual observer might easily get 
the impression that bees not only suck 
damaged fruit dry, but actually puncture 
and eat the sound fruit. Some years ago a 
neighbor sent word that he would like to 
have us come to his vineyard and he would 
give us indisputable proof that our bees 
were actually puncturing his grapes and 
sucking out the juice. We looked at the 
luscious bunches as they were hanging 
down, and, sure enough, there were small 
needle-like holes in almost every grape that 
the bees were working on. It looked like a 
clear case of “caught in the act” evidence 
against them. For the time being we were 
unable to offer a satisfactory explanation. 
We brought the matter to the attention of 
an old farmer who had been a beekeeper 
for many years. Finally one morning lie 
sent word to us that he had found the cul¬ 
prit, and that if we would come down to 
his place early some morning he would 
point him out. This we did. He showed us 
a little bird, quick of flight, and almost 
never to be seen around the vines when 
any human being was present. This bird, 
about the size of a sparrow, siriped, and 
called the Cape May warbler (Dendroica 
tigrinci), lias a long sharp needle-like beak. 
It would alight on a bunch, and about as 
fast as one could count them, would punc¬ 
ture grape after grape. After his birdship 
has done his mischief he leaves, and then 
come the innocent bees during the later 
hours of the day and finish the work 
of destruction by sucking the juices and 
the pulp of the grape until it becomes a 
withered skin over a few seeds. Thus the 
grapes were punctured by the birds during 
the early hours of the day; but the bees, 
coming on later, received all the blame for 
the mischief. 
The Cape May warbler is not the only 
bird guilty of puncturing grapes. There 
are many other species of small birds that 
learn this habit, and among them may be 
named the ever present sparrow and the 
beautiful Baltimore oriole, the sweet singer 
that is sometimes called the swinging bird, 
from its habit of building its nest on some 
overhanging limb. 
Some seasons the bird visitors are much 
more numerous than others. Several years 
may - pass before any complaint is made, 
and then the beekeeper will have angry 
people in the vicinity of his bees calling 
him up on the telephone, saying the bees 
are eating up their grapes. The thing to 
do is to call on each complainant, and 
prove that the birds are the ones that do 
the mischief in the first place, and that it 
