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FOURTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT OF THE 



given locality may entirely change from 

 the crest to a depression in the curve. 

 Logically the horticulturist may expect to 

 experience as a result a possible shortage 

 in his crops. It merely typifies the bio- 

 logical interrelationship between bees 

 and fruits. Each is dependent upon the 

 other. For certainly in a maximum crop- 

 ping of an orchard it rright be assumed 

 that the fruit raiser is tlie more depend- 

 ent upon bees. 



At this point, tooo, tliere is a question 

 arising. How may this lluctuation in the 

 number of bees best be overcoine or 

 guarded against? 



To my mind there is but one answer. 

 A wise, painstaking. calculating fruit 

 grower will have answered it for him- 

 self. He already .^ees that to protect 

 himself, virtually to insure his crop 

 against possible failure, he must control 

 tlie prevalence of honey bees (upper 

 curve), that is his pollen bearers. There 

 .seems, therefore, to be liut one answer: 

 Keep bees for the orcliard; maintain the 

 "maximum prevalence." By this means 

 alone can there be certainty of provid- 

 ing ample agents for pollination. Grow- 

 ers commonly plow, cultivate, fertilize, 

 disbud, scrape, spray and thin their or- 

 chards or trees according to the best 

 practice of our agricultural and liorti- 

 cultural experts. But in many instances 

 these are of little or no avail if bees are 

 wanting. Trees may grow to perfection 

 but unless there is some insect on hand, 

 primarily the honey bee, to transport the 

 pollen, crops cannot be assured. There 

 is, too, an illustration of a specific In- 

 stance to tills point. 



A $3,800 Crop Due to Bees. 



In one of the western states tliere were 

 planted at the same time two compar- 

 able apple orchards of about equal acreage 

 and similarly located, each in a pocket in 

 the foothills of an admiiable fruit land, 

 both well drained and protected from 

 frosts. One orchard bore heavily for suc- 

 cessive years; in tlie other there was no 

 crop, although the trees blossomed heav- 

 ily eacli year. In despair of financial ruin 

 the owner called the assistance of a state 

 experiment fetation. A pomologist and 

 entomologist was sent out to make an 

 investigation. The ground was gone over 

 several times; the expert was about to 

 return without solving the problem of 

 failure when the question was raised: 

 Were ever bees maintained to set this 

 orchard which has fruited? The owner, 

 however, asserted with full assurance 

 that neither orchard had ever had bees. 

 But the experiment station man did no: 



give up the problem. The ground was. 

 gone over again, yet with no further 

 successes. As the specialist was about to 

 leave, in one of the orchards he chanced 

 to see a stream of bees coming from un- 

 derneath a .oile of swale. Further inves- 

 tigation revealed a fallen log sunken in 

 the damp land and covered ,with grass. 

 This slieltered a large colony of honey 

 bees. Immediatefly, however, bees were 

 recommended and secured for the other 

 orchard, with the ratther startling result 

 that, instead of, a crop failure, the or- 

 chard fruited the next year, netting its 

 owner $3,800 on the crop. These data 

 are secured from a state experiment sta- 

 tion and have been reliably compiled. 



It has now been shown that bees with 

 certainty benefit an orchard. lAnother 

 question arises. How many colonies of 

 bees are desirable for an orchard or farm 

 of a given size, despite the fact that there 

 may be wild bees or escaped honey bees 

 in the neighborhood? The fact that there 

 are apiaries maintained in the vicinity of 

 orchards or farms should be considered 

 to some extent, but, were I an orchard- 

 ist. I should hope to know definitely thy 

 reliance which could be put upon my 

 neighbor's apiary. Otlierwise his bees 

 might well be counted as wild. 



Moreover, I have often said that it is 

 far better, for instance, to flood an apple 

 orchard with bees during its bloorfling 

 period than to chance their scarcity. 

 Furthermore, the cost of maintaining an 

 apiary is infinitesimal and negligible as 

 compared to the best benefits or retuPhs. 

 Weather conditions should not be (Jisj-e- 

 garded. How often does it happen in the 

 blooming period of fruit trees that the 

 weather is inclement, perhaaps cold and 

 rainy, which, of course, precludes a free 

 flight of bees? At that season of the 

 year, too, bees seldom go as far afield as 

 perhaps they do later in the ' season. 

 Recently one authority has said that in 

 fruit bloom bees do not travel more than 

 a half mile for pollen. I woulc^ therefore 

 raise the question: Is it safe ito depend 

 upon wild bees or bees a very igreat dis- 

 tance from your orchard? OffUhe other 

 hand, would r>ot an apiary adjacent to' or 

 near your orchard be more advantageous? 

 This being the case, we are brought back 

 to our original question of: How many 

 colonies are needed? 



I used to say that one colony to every 

 fifty mature apple trees would be suffi- 

 cient. Presumably I said this once too 

 often, for I met with objection in Ontario, 

 where apple growing has reached a high 

 grade of perfection. There the fruit 



