APICULTURE. 393 



autumn. In late summer, the bumble-bees and paper-making wasps 

 number scores to each colony, while in spring, only the one fertile female 

 will be found. This is less conspicuously true of solitary insects, like 

 most of our native bees and wasps; yet, even these swarm in late summer, 

 where they were solitary or scattering in the early spring. The honey- 

 bees are a notable exception to this rule. They live over winter, so that, 

 even in early spring, we may find ten or fifteen thousand in a single 

 colony, in lieu of one solitary female, as seen in the nest of bombus or 

 vespa. By actual count in time of fruit bloom in May, I have found the 

 bees twenty to one of all other insects upon the flowers; and on cool days, 

 which are very common at this early season, I have known hundreds of 

 bees on the fruit blossoms, while I could not find a single other insect. 

 Thus we see that the honey-bees are exceedingly important in the 

 economy of vegetable growth and fruitage, especially of all such plants 

 as blossom early in the season. We have all noticed how much more 

 common our flowers are in autumn tlian in spring time. In spring, we 

 hunt for the claytonia, the trillium and the erythronium. In autumn, 

 we gather the asters and golden-rods by the armful, and they look up at 

 us from every marsh, fence corner and common. In May, our flowers 

 demand a search, while in California the fields of January and February 

 are one sea of blossoms. The mild California winters do not kill the 

 insects. There a profusion of bloom will receive service from these so- 

 called "marriage-priests," and a profusion of seed icill greet the coming 

 spring-time. Thus, our climate acts upon the insects, and the insects 

 upon the flowers, and we understand why our peculiar flora was developed. 

 Yet, notwithstanding the admirable demonstrations of the great master, 

 Darwin, and the observations' and practice of a few of our intelligent, 

 practical men, yet the great mass of our farmers are either ignorant or 

 Indifferent as to this matter, and so to the important practical consider- 

 ations which wait upon it. This is very evident, as appears from the 

 fact that many legislators the past winter,Kwhen called upon to protect 

 the bees, urged that fruit growers had interests as well as the bee-men, 

 not seeming to know that one of the greatest of these interests 

 rested with the very bees for which protection was asked. 



Now that we understand the significance of the law of adaptation in 

 reference to the progressive development of species, we easily understand 

 why our introduced fruits that blossom early would find a lack of the 

 "marriage-priests," and why it would be a matter of necessity to introduce 

 the honey-bee. which, like the fruits, are not indigenous to our country; 

 just as the bumble-bee must go with the red clover if the latter is to 

 succeed at once in far-off New Zealand. 



It is true that we havs native apples, cherries, plums, etc; but these, 

 like the early insects, were scattering, not massed in large orchards, and 

 very likely the fruitage of these, before the introduction of the honey-bee, 

 may have been scant and meager. 



Now that spraying our fruit trees with the arsenites early in the 

 spring is known to be so profitable, and is coming and will continue to 

 come more generally into use, and as such spraying is fatal to the bees if 

 performed during the time of bloom, and fatal not only to the imago but to 

 the brood to which it is fed in the hive, it becomes a question of momen- 

 tous importance that all should know that bees are valuable to the 



