BEES AND FRUIT-GROWING 



It is an indisputable fact that a great number of trees and 

 shrubs will not produce fruit unless cross-pollinated by insects. 

 At first this service was performed by our native species; but 

 with the planting of orchards by the square mile their number 

 became wholly inadequate to pollinate efficiently this vast 

 expanse of bloom. This difficulty is met by the introduction of 

 colonies of the domestic bee. No other insect is so well adapted 

 for this purpose. In numbers, diligence, perception, and 

 apparatus for carrying the pollen it has no equal. In orchard 

 after orchard the establishment of apiaries has been followed 

 by astonishing gains in the fruit-crop ; and to-day it is generally 

 admitted that honey-bees and fruit-culture must go together. 

 "The importance of honey-bees as agents in cross-pollination,'* 

 says Gardner, "cannot be overemphasized"; and one of the 

 largest fruit-growers in New Jersey declares: "I could not do 

 without bees. I never take a pound of their honey. All I 

 want them to do is to pollinate the blossoms. I would as soon 

 think of managing this orchard without a single spray-pump 

 as without bees." The fruit-culture of the future must be 

 largely dependent on the domestic bee, the only agency in cross- 

 ing which can be controlled by man.* 



Since otherwise numberless plants would produce no seed, 

 the beneficial effects of crossing between different individuals 

 and varieties of the same species cannot be doubted. It is by 

 no means confined to our wild and domestic fruits, but is of 

 very general occurrence among the higher plants. In many 

 cases it is secured by the separation of the stamens and pistils 

 by space, or in different flowers, as in the cone trees and many 

 deciduous-leaved trees; or by their separation in time by one 



* The reader who desires to follow this subject further will find it discussed 

 at length in an article by the writer in the A B C of Bee Culture ; A Cyclopedia 

 of Everything Pertaining to the Honey-Bee, by A. I. and E. R. Root. 



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