176 



Gleanings in Bee Culture 



onies of bees. Comparative notes made on 

 other orchards in the vicinity on April 22 

 showed that very few honeybees were to be 

 found. This proved conclusively that the 

 presence of the apiary in the orchard was of 

 material value in securing pollination. 



There can be no rule as to the definite 

 number of colonies that should be kept for 

 each acre, because of several variable factors 

 which enter into the problem. In the first 

 place, individual colonies of bees will vary, 

 not only in strength, but in the aggressive- 

 ness of the members of the hive. Some col- 

 onies will range better and cover more ground 

 in unfavorable weather than other colonies. 

 The main difficulty, of course, is due to the 

 fact that no two seasons are exactly alike, 

 and the number of colonies that would be 

 satisfactory one year might be totally inad- 

 equate the next season. 



During an unfavorable season a large 

 number of colonies close to the trees may 

 insure a full crop when all the other trees in 

 the neighborhood fail. This was repeatedly 

 shown in the orchard of Mr. George S. De- 

 muth, at Peru, Indiana. Mr. Demuth was 

 primarily a beekeeper, and his apiary was. 

 located in a small orchard. Year after year 

 this orchard set a full crop of fruit, even in 

 cold rainy seasons when the neighbors all 

 thought that the fruit was killed by frost. 

 It is quite probable that no small part of the 

 frost-killed fruit is simply injured by a lack 

 of pollination. It is certainly true that 

 fruit that is well pollinized is more vigorous, 

 and consequently more resistant to insect 

 and fungous injury, later in the season. 



To return to the Greenhorn. AVith a per- 

 sistence that was most aggravating, he in- 

 sisted that I had avoided his direct question 

 as to the number of colonies that he should 

 keep per acre, and how they should be spac- 

 ed. In answering this direct question I will 

 simply say that, for my own use, I am in- 

 tending to keep bees in the orchard at the 

 rate of one colony for each two acres of or- 

 chard. For 140 acres of orchard I plan to 

 have 70 colonies. These will not all be kept 

 in one place, but will be divided up into 

 groups of ten or fifteen each, and will be 

 placed at advantageous points about the or- 

 chard. I would avoid stringing the hives 

 over a great space in the orchard, as there 

 are some men who are afraid of bees, and 

 there may be such a man in one of your 

 gangs at spraying time. If the bees are 

 bunched in one small locality the trees 

 around them can be left unsprayed until 

 late in the evening, and the work can be 

 done after the bees are through flying. Un- 

 der no circumstances should the trees right 

 around the apiary be neglected because of 

 the bees. In fact, they soon become accus- 

 tomed to having people around them, and 

 it is seldom that they cause any trouble. 



SOME MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT SPRAYING 



Every season we have any number of ac- 

 counts of how some farmer has killed all 

 the bees in his neighborhood by spraying 

 his fruit. Sometimes such a report is true. 

 In the great majority of cases, however, it 



is not. When the practice of spraying first 

 came into use a number of years ago, some 

 manufacturers of spray-pumps published 

 the directions for spraying in such a way 

 that many farmers were led to an incorrect 

 notion of the process. From this first mis- 

 information has come much trouble, and 

 many explanations have been needed to 

 clear matters up between the fruitgrowers 

 and the beekeepers. 



As a matter of fact, the interests of the 

 fruitgrower and the beekeeper are indentical 

 in many respects, and there is no cause for 

 any misunderstanding between the two in- 

 dustries. Many fruitgrowers are seeing the 

 value of bees in the orchard, and many bee- 

 keepers are beginning to realize the value 

 of the honey harvest from the fruit bloom. 

 No fruitgrower who pretends to know the 

 first thing about spraying will attempt to 

 spray his trees while they are in bloom. To 

 do so would not only injure his friends the 

 bees, but would also result in some actual 

 damage to the blossoms. 



WHEN TO SPRAY 



The first spraying should be applied be- 

 fore the buds open, at a time when the bees 

 are not interested in the trees in any way. 

 The second spraying comes after the petals 

 have fallen; also a time when the bees are 

 no longer interested in the orchard. Bees 

 attend very strictly to their own business; 

 and after the nectar has dried up in the 

 flowers they are a dead issue so far as the 

 honey-gatherers are concerned. It is the 

 second spraying that usually causes the 

 fight between the orchardist and his bee- 

 keeping neighbor. Very often the neigh- 

 bor will become alarmed as soon as he sees 

 the spray-machine at work, and in some 

 cases he will claim that every dead bee that 

 he finds for weeks to come was killed by the 

 arsenic spray. 



A NEW SPRAYING SOLUTION THAT IS RE- 

 PELLENT TO INSECTS 



During the last two seasons a new spray 

 material has come into very general use 

 over the country. This is the dilute lime 

 and sulphur solution as a substitute for the 

 old Bordeaux mixture. The Bordeaux was 

 simply a mixture of copper sulphate and 

 lime, and it was used in connection with 

 the arsenate of lead or with Paris green. 

 The new sulphur spray requires the addi- 

 tion of the arsenic, just as the Bordeaux did; 

 but it possesses the added advantage to the 

 beekeeper that it is repellent to all insects. 

 The smell of the sulphur is so strong that 

 trees sprayed with it are notably free from 

 insects of all sorts during the period through 

 which the smell lasts. In this way the bees 

 are repelled along with certain injurious in- 

 sects (notably the plum curculio) . This re- 

 pellent action of the lime and sulphur will 

 no doubt go a long way toward easing the 

 fear of the beekeeper. For my own part I 

 feel so sure of the repellent value of the sul- 

 phur that I will venture the assertion that 

 no harm would resiilt to the bees, even if 

 the orchard should be sprayed while in full 



