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AMERICAN BEE lOURNAL 



Dec. 2h, 1901. 



queen-breeders to-day. At least, there never 

 was as much said upon the subject as at the 

 present time in the bee-papers. Doubtless 

 much more would have been written and 

 known on the subject It the mating of bees 

 could be controlled as in the case of other 

 animals. It is at least within the range of 

 possibilities that control of fertilization may 

 yet become an accomplished fact, apd if it 

 ever does come it will be well to he prepared 

 for it in advance. Even if we never reach 

 any greater control than at present, a thor- 

 ough knowledge of all that can be learned 

 about breeding may be turned to account. 

 Especially let the younger members of the 

 fraternity inform themselves as fully as pos- 

 sible. Doubtless more or less that is confus- 

 ing, and sometimes contradictory, may be 

 found in the bee-papers, but careful sifting 

 may get that which will be useful in leading 

 toward improvement of our present stock of 

 bees. 



I Weekly Budget. I 



Apiary of K. Wheeler.— On the first page 

 of this number is the picture of the apiary of 

 R. Wheeler, of Alameda Co., Calif. It is 

 located in the corner of his chicken yard, 

 showing all the hives but one. In the further 

 right corner is a nucleus hive, eoulaining 

 four 3-frame nuclei, under the same roof, 

 vrhere he boards his spare queens. To the 

 left will be seen a shade-root made of shakes 3 

 feet long, nailed to strips of board 2x1, three 

 in number. It hangs on a pivot one-third 

 distance from the edge, as shown in the 

 picture. By throwing forward it gives room 

 to work at the hives, changes the shade, etc. 

 In front of the hives is coal-ashes. Between 

 the two pieces of old boiler-tubing is planted 

 mignonette and primrose. The hydrant and 

 hose are in the near right corner. All is eu- 

 closed by a wire fence 3 feet high. It is a 

 very neat apiary. 



British Estima-TE of Ameuicass. — It 

 is very pleasant to know that a very kindly 

 feeling exists between this and the mother 

 country, especially among bee-keepers. F. 

 W. L. Sladen, a prominent British bee-keeper 

 who is spending some months in this country, 

 writes to the British Bee Journal : 



I feel convinced that we have a great deal 

 to learn from our American cousins. They 

 are a progressive people, and are fast coming 

 to the front in almost everything. The evi- 

 dences of progress throughout the country, 

 and especially in the cities, have simply 

 amazed me. Many of the American bee- 

 keepers' methods and appliances are unsuit- 

 able for adoption in England, on account of 

 climatic and other differences, but there are 

 others that ought certainly to be valuable to 

 us, and it is to be hoped that our people will 

 give them a fair trial, so that we may not lag 

 behind the times. 



Mr. Frank RAUCHFrss, the energetic and 

 wide-awake manager of the Colorado Honey- 

 Producers' Association, was in Chicago a few 

 days last week. He had been visiting rari- 

 (ms cities in the interest of his Association, 

 which will doubtless result in mutual benefit. 

 We had several good visits with Mr. Rauch- 

 fuss. So did Mr. Burnett, of R. A. Burnett & 

 Co. Of course, the subject of selling comb 

 honey by case vs. weight was discussed quite 

 thoroughly, and we think Mr. Rauchfuss 

 returned feeling that there is more than one 

 side to it. 



I The Buffalo Convention. I 



^ Report of the Proceeding's of the Thirty-Second Annual ^ 



^ Convention of the National Bee-Keepers' Asso- ^ 



^ elation, held at Buffalo, New York, ^ 



i$ Sept. 10, 11 and 12, 1901. ^j 



(Continued from page .S05.J I 



THIRD DAY— Evening Sbssion. 

 The meeting- was held at Epworth 

 Hotel, and was called to order at 8 p.m., 

 by Mr. Watrous, president of the Pomo- 

 logical Society, who announced that 

 one of the papers set down for the af- 

 ternoon session, and which had not 

 been reached at that session, would be 

 read then. After the reading- of the 

 paper, which was of no practical inter- 

 est to bee-keepers. President Watrous 

 said: " We have with us to-night the 

 National Bee Keepers' Association, and 

 their officers, in conjunction with ours, 

 have provided a s,eries of discussions 

 here which we shall next have, and 

 without further preliminaries we will 

 now listen to Prof. James Fletcher, of 

 Ottawa, Ont., Canada." 



Prof. Fletcher then delivered the 

 following address on the subject of 



Bees as Fertilizers of Flowers. 



At the last annual meeting of the 

 Ontario Bee-Keepers' Association. I 

 had the pleasure of delivering an ad- 

 dress on " The Value of Bees in 

 Fruit Orchards," in which, among 

 other subjects, I discussed the burning 

 question of whether bees did or could 

 injure the fruit-grower by attacking 

 sound fruit on the trees. The position 

 I took at that time was that unless 

 fruit was first broken or injured, 

 honey-bees could not gain access to 

 the juice of the fruits. It appears to 

 me now, however, that the ability of 

 bees to puncture ripe fruit need not 

 take up so much discussion at a bee- 

 keepers' meeting- as has on some oc- 

 casions been given to it. 



If it is so very doubtful whether they 

 can or cannot cause injury, it seems 

 prima facie evident that even if this is 

 possible — which I do not believe — the 

 injury occurs so seldom that it need 

 not be considered. If it were a fre- 

 quently occurring or important injury, 

 some of those who have watched bees, 

 either as friends or enemies, would 

 have been able to settle the matter long- 

 before this. 



Another subject taken up by me at 

 the time referred to was, "Bees as 

 Fertilizers of Flowers." and at the re- 

 quest of President Root, of the National 

 Bee-Keepers" Association, I have pre- 

 pared a short paper for this evening's 

 meeting on that subject, in which I 

 shall direct your attention to the strik- 

 ing interrelation of plants and insects, 

 and in which I trust that I may be able 

 to lay before you facts which may be 

 new to some of your members, must be 

 of interest to all, and cannot but call 

 forth admiration for the marvelous 

 provisions which are to be seen every- 

 where iti Nature for the bringing about 

 of good and useful results and prevent- 



ing waste. It will be found that not 

 only are flowers absolutely necessary 

 to bees, as the source of their food — 

 nectar and pollen — but that bees and 

 other insects are no less necessary to 

 most flowers, so that their perpetuation 

 may be secured. 



This fact should be recognized by the 

 fruit-grower, above all others, for were 

 it not for insects, and particularly for 

 the honey-bee, his crops of fruit 

 would be far less than they are every 

 year, and even in some cases he would 

 get no fruit at all. 



Failure in the fruit crop is more often 

 due, I think, to dull or damp weather 

 at the time of blossoming, which pre- 

 vents insects from working actively in 

 the flowers, than to any other cause. 

 Flowers of plants are a special devel- 

 opment of leaf-growth, produced for a 

 special purpose, namely, for securing 

 the fertilization, development and ma- 

 turing of the seeds, which are the chief 

 means by which a species of plant is 

 preserved from extinction. A normal 

 flower consists of two sets of organs — 

 a protective envelopment made up of 

 the corolla, which as a rule has highly 

 colored and showy petals ; and the 

 calyx, which is mainly a protection 

 during the time the corolla and the 

 more important organs contained with- 

 in it are developing. The other set of 

 organs, known as the essential organs, 

 comprise the stamens and pistils; the 

 former of these represent the male sex, 

 and the latter the female. The anthers 

 — the important part of the stamens — 

 are practically small cases containing 

 pollen, without the agency of which 

 the ovules or undeveloped seeds which 

 are formed in the lower part of the pis- 

 til cannot come to maturity, or — from 

 the fruit-grower's point of view — unless 

 the flowers on his trees are fertilized 

 in this way, no fruit will form, and his 

 labor will be in vain. It is necessary 

 that pollen should be applied to the 

 stigma or sensitive portion of the pistil 

 before the seeds can be developed, and 

 it has been found that it is most ad- 

 vantageous to a species that the seeds 

 of a given flower shall be fertilized by 

 the pollen from some other flower of 

 the same species. 



A study of the devices provided by 

 Nature to insure this cross-fertilization 

 forms one of the most charming 

 branches of the whole study of botany. 

 It is a branch of the subject which 

 may be said to have had its origin in 

 the remarkable investigations of the 

 great naturalist, Charles Darwin, and 

 has since been developed in Europe by 

 Lubbock, Anton Korner, and Miller. 

 In this country excellent work has been 

 done by Messrs. Halsted, Bailey, Rob- 

 ertson, Waugh, and others who are 

 with us to-night ; so that it will be seen 

 that the study itself is quite recent, but, 



