426 THE MONTHLY BULLETIN. 



THE RELATION OF BEES TO HORTICULTURE.* 



By A. J. Cook. 



3Ir. President and Gentlemen of the American Pomological Society: 

 Your Secretary, in his invitation requesting this paper, urged brevity. 

 I shall surely heed his request, as I am a long time advocate of short 

 addresses and ample discussions at a meeting like this. 



When the great Charles Darwin performed his classic experiments 

 demonstrating the necessity to full fruitage of many field crops, fruits 

 and vegetables, he wrought a masterly service. Beal, Rothrock, Waite 

 and others have abundantly confirmed his dictum that some fruits 

 require cross-pollination to fruit at all ; others are partially self -sterile ; 

 still others are generally fertile, but under peculiar conditions — prob- 

 ably those adverse to thrift — they refuse to produce fruit unless cross- 

 pollinated. How many have had personal confirmation of all these 

 truths ! 



Whenever a thrifty tree or plant blooms profusely year after year 

 and fails as often to fruit, then the conclusion may very safely be drawn 

 that lack of cross-pollination is the sufficient cause of sterility. Darwin 

 also gave much credit to the honey bee for this valuable service. True, 

 any nectar or pollen loving insect aids in this service of cross-pollina- 

 tion — Apids, Vespids and other wasps, various Diptera, many of the 

 Coleoptera and Hemiptera. These latter were quite sufficient in 

 nature's groves when trees of a single species were few and scattering 

 and when limitation of fruiting was greeted with no frown or com- 

 plaint. With civilized man on the scene a single species of trees is 

 crowded into a large area and more people are hungry for a large and 

 constant fruitage from large groves. This requires multitudes of 

 pollinators, and the hive bee alone is adequate to the task. No truth in 

 our horticultural economy is more thoroughly established than tliat 

 bees, as pollinators, are a sine qua nan in nearly every orchard of any 

 considerable size. It naturally follows that it is equally important to 

 mix varieties of trees in planting an orchard, and in selecting the 

 varieties to secure those that are free pollinators and that blossom 

 at the same time. 



Apiculture is a fascinating vocation and secures for man's use 

 valuable stores of a very wholesome and nutritious food element which 

 else would be wholly lost to the world ; yet worthy as it is in this respect 

 it serves a far more important purpose in the invaluable aid it renders 

 to the great field of agriculture in cross-pollinating her products. 

 Today very few persons are so encrusted with ignorance as to complain 

 that bees are enemies of the pomologist in destroying his fruit. They 

 see it mutilated — peach or pear, the shrunken grape, with the eager bees 

 sucking the delicious juices — and in their haste condemn their ever 

 industrious friends, the honey bees. If wise to the truth, they know 

 that hive bees never attack sound fruit. Once let the wasp, bird or a 

 hot damp atmosphere crack or wound the various fruits, and the bees 

 scent the nectar and hie in force to sip the escaping sugar-laden juice. 

 Of course all such wounded fruit is worthless, and the bees deserve 



♦Address before the American Pomological Society, Sept. 1, 1915. 



