350 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 



have been given access to greenhouses so that the flowers might be 

 fertilized and thus develop more and better fruit under such condi- 

 tions. Flowers have been covered so a« to prevent insects reaching 

 them, but light and air admitted. Side by side were others to which 

 bees had access. An examination of the seed showed those of the 

 former to be weak in vitality, those of the latter strong. In man)- 

 instances it has been observed where fruit trees were covered with 

 bloom and poor results followed, that the weather at the time of 

 bloom was clovtdy, wet and cold and thus unfavorable to bees work- 

 ing among the flowers. 



Scientific investigation indicates more and inore, as the question 

 of fertilization is concerned, that bees are important factors in the 

 production of fruit and thus become co-workers with fruit-growers. 



Bees ix Relation to the Destruction of Fruit.' Along this 

 line of investigation exhaustive experiments have been carried on 

 under the direction of the Department of Agriculture, U. S. Neither 

 care nor expense was withheld bj' the apiculturistto whom the work 

 was intrusted. Hives were kept within a building from which the 

 bees could not escape. In this, grapes, peaches, pears and plums, 

 varying from green to dead ripe, were placed. The bees were deprived 

 of food and left with the fruit exposed, so that they might feed upon 

 it when hunger affected them. Many came to the fruit from time to 

 time but never broke the skin, but where they found it broken they 

 at once fed upon the exuding juice. They showed no tendencj- to 

 use their jaws in cutting open a place The test was continued for 

 thirty days, and other bees tried with similar results. In all cases 

 food was taken only from fruit which had been previously broken. 

 Consequently, it appears that bees will not injure perfect fruit, a con- 

 clusion arrived at by many observers before these thorough experi- 

 ments were undertaken. This is what might be expected when the 

 structure of the bee's mouth is considered. It is quite different in 

 the case of wasps, which are supplied with jaws suitable to break 

 into the skin, and in all likelihood they are the cause of the injured 

 fruit upon which some observers have seen bees feeding. Much evi- 

 dence has been collected upon the amount of injur)- done by bees to 

 fruit, and it all seems to be in favor of exonerating the bee from 

 the charge of injuring sound fruit. 



PARIS Green in Relation to Bees. In several places where 

 spraying is carried on extensively it has been observed that since 

 the introduction of that practice many bees have perished during 

 the time trees are in bloom, and some observers have noticed that 

 the brood also perished. 



Before the days of spraying such mortality was unknown. Now 

 although there has been no analysis of the bodies of the dead bees 

 for the purpose of ascertaining the presence of arsenic, still the death 

 of the bees is so intimately associated with spraying that there 

 seems little reason to believe otherwise than that the bees have 

 been poisoned by Paris green used in spraying fruit trees. However, 

 this will likely soon be settled by an analysis of the bodies of bees 

 supposed to have been poisoned, and I have no doubt arsenic will be 



