6 B'dcii — PretildcntUU Address. 



have hud his own ideas on tliis subject when he wrote the famil- 

 iar lines. 



"Full many a flower is boru to bliish uuseen, 

 And waste its sweetness on the desert air." 



The service directly rendered to man by bees, however, in sup- 

 jilying the products mentioned, is but slight as compared with 

 the services indirectly rendered by cross-fertilization of our culti- 

 vated plants, and it has been estimated that the annual addition 

 to our wealth by bees in this direction alone, far exceeds that de- 

 rived from honey and wax. One of the latest discoveries bear- 

 ing on this subject, very fully enforcing the general principle, 

 was presented to the ^Society for the first time within the past 

 year by our fellow-member, Mr. M. B. Waite, as a result of his 

 investigations for the Division of Vegetable Pathology in the 

 Department of Agriculture. He has proved that a majority of 

 the more valued varieties of our apples and pears are nearly or 

 wholly sterile when fertilized by pollen of the same variety, or 

 that they bear fruit of an inferior character and very different 

 from that produced when cross-fertilized ; further, that were it 

 not for the cross-fertilizing agency of bees, scarcely any of these 

 fruits could be produced in the abundance and perfection in 

 which we now get them, and that to secure the best results and 

 facilitate the Avork of the bees, it is yet necessary, in the large 

 majority of cases, to mix varieties in the same orchard. Bees 

 were doubtless the earliest embalmers, since they use the pro- 

 polis to encase and thus prevent the putrefaction of any intruder 

 which is too large for them to drag out of the hive. 



There is much, even to-day, in the economy of the Hive Bee that 

 is yet debated among the best informed apiarians, but I will en- 

 deavor to give you an epitome of what is absolutely known of its 

 more important habits, structures and functions — the true life- 

 history, so to sjjeak, of the bee. By going somewhat into detail 

 with this species, we may avoid repetition in treating of the other 

 social Hynienoptera, all of which have somewhat similar larva3 

 and transformations. Let us, in imagination, j)roceed to an 

 ordinary well-kept ajnary. Taking a bee-smoker in one 

 hand — one of the pattern invented by the late M. Quinby of 

 New York — we lift one corner of the hive cover or quilt, and 

 send enough smoke down among the bees to give them to 

 understand that they must submit to our manipulation. Draw- 



