The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1875-10-02 00:00:00

BEES AND THEIR PROPENSITIES.

In connection with the subject of "Bees and Bee-
keeping," which has recently been somewhat generally
discussed, the following communications have been
sent to The Times for publication :

6tr,—The question of beekeeping, like most other ques-
tions, has its two sides. Last winter a new occupant came
to the house nearest to mine; a public road separates us.
He is an amateur beekeeper and has many hives. It was not
long before these busy workers began to visit us in large
numbers. In the early summer, upon one occasion when
leaving my house I was surrounded by a swarm, and had to
retreat immediately, fearing that they would make a tem-
porary settlement on my head.
Shortly after, some friends on coming to dine one evening
were afraid to approach my door, as a swarm of bees filled
the porch, and seemed inclined to take up their abode
under its shelter. Now the autumn has come they have
made a raid upon my fruit. I have a large garden, and have
a very fine crop of peaches, fully one-half of which have
been totally destroyed by the bees which came in legions,
and the remainder so damaged as to be unfit for the table,
and out of many hundreds I have not been able to gather a
dozen perfect, and have had much difficulty in obtaining
one or two dishes in decent condition for dessert. The nec-
tarines, plums, Szc., are similarly attacked.
01 course, to me bees are a very great nuisance, and how-
ever well adapted for moors and places of that sort, ought
not to be kept in great numbers by those who live near
others.
I have not complained to my neighbour, the Vicar, as I
know he is very fond of his bees, and I would rather put up
with the loss than disturb his enjoyments; but as your notice
of the exhibition held yesterday at the Crystal Palace by the
British Beekeepers' Association is calculated to promote the
increase of these little robbers, I think a word on the other
side may have its use.
Perhaps some of your readers know of a plan of protecting
fruit from bees, without, at the same time, excluding the
sun.—l am, Sir, your obedient servant, C. It.
September 22.

Sir,—l am glad to see, from a letter in your columns to-
day, that the bees are "found out" at last, and that a protest
is entered against the excessive preservation of this small
winged game.
I have for some time given up keeping them, owing to
their plundering propensities. But they visit me from a
tenant of mine in a nighbonring farm, and, like "C. 1t.," I
don't like grumbling. This year, however, their ravages

have been frightful. Both in and oot of the houses, all
kinds of fruits ripe and unripe, have gone down before
them. They take no notice of the bottles of sweetstuff
which entrap hornets, wasps, flies' and even red admiral
butterflies, but they go to work in abusiness-like, systematic
way, which soon leaves nothirg on the trees but "hollow
mockeries." Mr. Cotton, when in his "Conservative Bee
keeper" he told people to make their fortunes by the
infinite multiplication of hives, forgot that an unlimited
number of bees cannot, any more than an unlimited number
of sheep, go in and out and find pasture honestly in a given
district.—l am your obedient servant, S. C.
Cleve llill, Sept. 24.

Sir,—As a promoter of beekeeping for at least a quarter of
a century and one of the judges of the British Apiarian
Society, I trust you will allow me a small space in your
columns in answer to your correspondent "0. R." In the
first place, I recommend him to lay aside his fear of the bee,
as it is a well-known fact to those conversant with the habits
of the insect that they never volunteer an attack unless their
domiciles are invaded and rifled of their sweets. Were it
otherwise, the danger to men and other animals in a country
where myriads of these armed insects are daily at work in
our fields would be so imminent as to threaten annihilation.
But who has ever witnessed an attack from bees when peace-
fully working ik the fields or clustering in their swarms?
Your coirespondent does not complain of a single sting re-
ceived by himself or friends.
As regards the serious charge of the destruction of his
fruit, as a close observer of the habits of the bee, I can
truthfully affirm that I have never experienced their preda-
tory instincts directed towards any of our English fruits
except when over-ripe and becoming putrescent on the trees.
My apiary consists of about 30 hives scattered over a garden
by no means large, in the midst of fruit trees of every kind
—peaches, nectarines, plums, pears, apricots, apples, rasp-
berries, &c., and from the closest observance I can assert that
I have never noticed an attack upon these fruits by a single
bee, except when diseased or over-ripe, and very rarely even
In that case. If "C. It." will carefully watch his fruit he
will find the invaders to be the wasps or some other insects,
and not the bees. From the days of Virgil and Columella
downwards never has theft of fruit been charged against our
favourites.

But, granting, which I do not, for the sake of argument,
some truth in the allegation, consider the benefits derived
from the labour of these insects. They are the great cause
of the fruitfulness of owl orchards. My fruit trees, con-
sisting of pyramids and bushes, planted in the Autumn of
1873, have been so laden with fruit of almost every kind
that they have been the wonder and admiration of my
friends and neighbours, and this precocious fruitful-
ness must be entirely attributed to the labours of my
bees, which might be seen in thousands conveying
pollen from bloom to blootn, thus fructifying those which
would otherwise have remained barren. We members
of the British Beekeepers' Association have to thank you,
Sir, for the notice you have taken of our late exhibi-
tion, as calculated to bring before the British public a
subject sadly too long neglected, as the large quantities of
wax and honey imported into the United Kingdom prove.
In the culture of the honey-bee we are far behind most
other nations, especially Germans, Swiss, Hungarians, and
Americans. It is to wipe away this reproach that we ask
your aid. As a proof of what may be done on a small scale,
1 may state that niy own apiary of twelve hives during
the Summer of 1874 collected over 3cwt. of purest surplus
honeycomb, 2001 b. of which was gathered by six hives
only, and received the first prize at the Crystal Palace
show. Putting this honeycomb at its lowest price of is. 3d.
per lb., its value is £2l • and this, from one small parish,
in which but for my bees the flowers yielding it would have,

"Wasted their sweetness on the desert air,"

proves the immense loss of wealth to our country arising
from the neglect of the cultivation of the honey-bee.

Let not, therefore, your correspondent call our little
favourites a "nuisance," nor banish them to the moors and
"places of that sort ;" rather let him lay aside his selfish
fears, become a member of our Beekeepers' Association,
enter upon the cultivation of the bee, and I will promise him
an endless source of interest and amusement, together with
a moot prolific garden and plentiful crops of fruit. —I am,
Sir, your obedient servant,