Mar. 15, 1912 



large for his spraying equipment, made the 

 statement that he intends to begin spray- 

 ing for codling worm before the blossoms 

 have begun to fall, in order to cover his en- 

 tire orchard in proper time. 



I called his attention to the fact that he 

 would, no doubt, receive considerable inju- 

 ry from such an application, to which he 

 replied that it was about six of one and 

 half a dozen of the other; because if he did 

 not gel over his entire orchard the unspray- 

 ed part would be of no use to him. 



I told him that, if his plan were very 

 generally adopted, it would probably lead 

 to the passage of a law prohibiting spray- 

 ing at blooming time. 1 do not think that, 

 should he undertake to do this, he will be 

 very generally followed by others, because 

 most of them have suitable spraying equip- 

 ment for their needs; and wTiile this man 

 has been looked up to considerably in the 

 past, and has had his methods copied by 

 others, he does not hold the same place as 

 an orchardist in the estimation of others at 

 the present time. 



I assure you I shall be glad to do whatev- 

 er I can to enlighten our fruitgrowers on 

 this matter, and hope that we shall never 

 need a law to prevent spraying while trees 

 are in full bloom. 



In regard to this compulsory-sjjraying 

 law I will say that the same is not under 

 the control of this Division, and we are in 

 no wise responsible for its passage. 



Columbus, O., March 1. 



ARE HONEYBEES OF ANY VALUE TO THE 

 ORCHARDIST? 



How Many Colonies are Needed per Acre of Fruit? 



BY BENJAMIN W. DOUGLASS 



The Greenhorn had just purchased a small 

 orchard and had started out as a full-fledged 

 convert to the "back-to-the-soil movement." 

 Unlike many such greenhorns, he did not 

 consider that he knew all there was to be 

 known about farm and orchard work. He 

 knew enough to know that you can not 

 learn horticulture simply by reading books 

 in the back parlor, and that fruitgrowing 

 requires more than a theoretical knowledge 

 in order to make it a success. 



Since I had known the Greenhorn for 

 many years it was but natural that I should 

 be asked to contribute my share of informa- 

 tion toward making the new orchard a suc- 

 cess, and I accordingly made a careful in- 

 spection of his place soon after it was bought. 

 This was in the spring of the year, shortly 

 after the apple trees had blos.somed — and 

 they had blossomed lavishly. To the own- 

 er's surprise, however, the stand of fruit was 

 exceedingly poor, although there had been 

 no frost to injure the (lowers. 



"It seems to me, "said I, "that your only 

 trouble here is a lack of pollination due to 

 the absence of bees." 



"But," he replied, "I have a colony of 



bees up under the grape-arbor at the house, 

 so that surely can't be the reason for the 

 trouble." 



So I had to analyze the situation for him; 

 and, briefly, this is what I said: 



"Your house and the single stand of bees 

 are nearly a quarter of a mile from the main 

 part of this orchard. The past weeks have 

 been very wet and cold, although not cold 

 enough for frost. The hours of sunshine 

 have been very brief; and during the ])eriotl 

 when the trees were in bloom the sun shone 

 for only a few minutes at a time. ]3ee will 

 not fly in such weather, or at best they (ly 

 but a short distance from their hives. Con- 

 sequently your crop has failed because you 

 did not have numerous colonies of bees scat- 

 tered through your orchard. If you had 

 done so the bees would have taken advan- 

 tage of every minute of sunshine and given 

 you a full crop where you now have a fail- 

 ure. If my theory in this is correct we 

 should find that your trees near the house, 

 in the 'family orchard,' have more fruit 

 than these in the main orchard." 



We at once investigated, and found that 

 the trees near the house had set a very fair 

 crop of apples. In the main orchard there 

 were more apples near the house than there 

 were on the further side of the orchard; for, 

 as I have said, in that part the crop was a 

 failure. 



"Well," said the Greenhorn, "how many 

 colonies of bees should I have on my twenty 

 acres of orchard? and how close together 

 should they be placed? or should they all be 

 placed in one spot, such as the center of the 

 tract?" 



Here was a question that I could not an- 

 swer with any degree of finality. It is im- 

 possible to draw a definite conclusion re- 

 garding the exact number of bees that 

 should be kept in order to assure good pol- 

 lination. Some seasons very few bees will 

 suffice, while it is possible to imagine a blos- 

 soming season when any quantity of bees 

 would fail to provide pollination. After a 

 long series of observations on this subject I 

 admit that I am still almost as far from a 

 definite conclusion as I was at the start. 



In the spring of 1911 I assigned one of my 

 assistants to a study of the insects concern- 

 ed in the pollination of the apple, pear, and 

 cherry. Without going into his results in 

 detail I will quote from field notes made at 

 different times during the season: 



April 20. — Warm and clear. An abun- 

 dance of wild bees, and tlies of various 

 species. Honeybees present in large num- 

 bers. 



April 22. — Partly cloudy; cold and windy 

 following a rain; native species of bees and 

 flies very scarce; honeybees fairly common. 



May 9. — Warm and clear. Many small 

 native bees on cherry; in numbers they ex- 

 ceeded the honeybees. On the apple the 

 honeybees were the most numerous, exceed- 

 ing all other species. Syrphid flies were 

 quite common throughout the orchard. 



These notes and studies were made in an 

 orchard where there were about seventy col- 



