The European Sparrow.
“A large number of German sparrows, have been imported and placed in the vineyards in the vicinity of Davenport, Iowa.” So the newspapers inform us—the object, we presume, being the destruction of caterpillars. We fear, however, that the grape growers there have made a capital mistake, and are likely to have an easy time annually hereafter, when gathering the vintage.
It has been customary to charge the bees with damaging the grape crop, but it appears that in Germany this sparrow is the real offender. The Rev. Mr. Stern, an aged and well known bee-keeper, residing at Wessenburg in Lower Austria, writing to the Bienenzeitung about this alleged malfeasance of the bees, says—“I have lived more than thirty years in a village of three thousand inhabitants, most of whom derive their support from grape culture. Besides their vineyards, they have numerous trellises of vines at their houses, and there are several apiaries in the village. I have myself an arbor of vines, 180 feet in length, within twenty-five feet of my apiary. Now it has happened for many years that I did not get a single bunch of grapes, undamaged, from any vine in this arbor, and the other grape-growers in my neighborhood fared no better. Berries torn open were annually to be seen, and I have seen bees on such berries often—not indeed by ‘myriads’ nor yet by thousands, or hundreds, nor even by fifties, but only here and there a solitary one quietly sipping of the extruding juice. I have killed hundreds of hornets in the act of tearing open the berries, and thousands of wasps busy at the same work; but I have never seen a bee so engaged. But, what flies and bees are wholly incapable of doing, and what wasps and hornets do only in part and occasionally, is really the work of the Sparrow, which, because its habits have been little observed or studied, continues to be held in high estimation in some districts. Even a small number of these birds can, in a few days, do exceedingly great injury in a vineyard, at the time when the ripening grapes are becoming mellow. They then peck open berry after berry, as though in sport, sip a little of the juice occasionally, and flitting away to some other cluster incessantly repeat the damaging process. I have witnessed this hundreds of times; and seen them do the work so effectually that, year after year, I have not obtained one undamaged cluster from my arbor.—This cunning sparrow knows, too, how to avoid traps and springes, and soon familiarizes himself with the most elaborate fantastic scarecrow set up in terrorem, acting apparently in derision and contempt of the baffled and mortified grape-grower.”
Forty years ago, an American ornithologist, speaking of this species of sparrow and the injury done by it to grain fields in Europe, said—“Fortunately we are free from this pest on this side of the Atlantic.” Now we import them, and boast of it!
CORRESPONDENCE OF THE BEE JOURNAL.
Tyrone, Ontario, July 16.—Bees are doing very well here this year. I have got forty pounds surplus honey from some of my hives already.—J. McLaughlin.
Washington Harbor, Wis., July 16.—This has been the best honey season, thus far, seen by me. A second swarm hived on Tuesday June 21st, on Wednesday night the 29th, weighed twenty-five pounds, besides having yielded thirty-eight pounds ten ounces taken by honey machine in eight days. I had given the swarm seven old combs and one empty frame, placed it on the old stand, and removed the old stock to a new place. On the 25th and 26th, it gained twenty-one pounds six ounces in two days, on raspberry and clover blossoms. This is the best day’s work and week’s work I have noticed. The queen began to lay on Monday the 27th, so they had no brood to nurse.
The next fourteen days they lost four pounds each. Basswood began to bloom July 13th. One hive gained fifteen pounds in four days; and in the next ten days I expect my five hives to gain thirty to forty pounds each, which closes the honey season here. The last two years the hives lost more in weight from the 1st of August to the 1st of November, than in five months in the cellar to 1st of April.—H. D. Miner.
Borodino, N. Y., July 16.—I think that you publish by far the best Bee Journal.