A prominent wine-grower in this country, told me, about a
year ago, that he did not want bees in his neighborhood as
he found they injured his grape crop. As I have a small
grapery, of about a hundred plants, between the rows of which
I find shelter for about 20 colonies of bees, I determined
to observe if his theory was correct, for I was loth to give
up either. If any fruit crop could be injured by the visit
of bees, mine is surely the one. The result of one season's
close observation has convinced me: 1st. That bees promote
rather than injure the foundations of fruit buds, because the
bunches on my vines were full, with better developed berries,
than those produced on vines less exposed to their visits,
and my peach and cherry trees were as fairly loaded with
fruit as they well could be. 2nd. That in the fall bees only
visit our ripe berries, that have been sweetened by early
frosts, and are very rarely seen on good sound fruit, when
the skin is unbroken, and that the loss from this cause is
of very little consequence, as the fruit attacked would fall
off itself, without the visit of the bees, before gathering.
I am wintering 21 colonies, mostly Italians; procured one
of Jones' Cyprian queens, but too late in the fall to speak
intelligently of the result. They are on summer stands, well
sheltered and surrounded with straw, having means of exit,
and I think are wintering well, but they have not had a good
fly since early in November.
Belle River, Ont., March 5, 1881.
For the American Bee Journal.
Remarkable Tardiness in Fecundity.