634 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



and give Mm more honey, for God speaks 

 truth, and thy brother's belly lies.' And 

 the dose being repeated, the man, by 

 God's mercy, was immediately cured." 



Bees and Fruit- Growers, as 



we have so often said, should be the best 

 of friends, and ought to do all in their 

 power to preserve harmony in their 

 midst. Their interests are so identical 

 and mutually beneficiar that nothing 

 should be permitted to interfere with 

 the most pleasant and cordial relations 

 existing between those who produce 

 honey and those who grow fruits and 

 seeds. 



Mr. Frank Be?hton, an attache of the 

 Department of Agriculture at Washing- 

 ton, D.-C, prepared an article for the 

 last issue of Insect Life, which covers 

 the ground so clearly and thoroughly 

 that we reproduce it here for the benefit 

 of our readers. It is as follows : 



BEES OF GKEAT VALUE TO FEUIT AND 

 SEED GKOWEBS. 



At last fruit-growers and bee-keepers 

 are getting into right relations with each 

 other. The numerous discussions which 

 have taken place regarding the value of 

 bees as fertilizers of fruit blossoms, and 

 of those blossoms of plants grown for 

 their seeds, and regarding the alleged 

 damage to fruit by bees have led to close 

 observation and careful experimentation, 

 the results of which show that the in- 

 terests of these two classes of producers 

 conflict in but trifling respects — that, in 

 fact, bee-keepers and fruit-growers are 

 of great help to each other, and even 

 indispensable if each is to obtain the 

 best results in his work. 



Bee-keepers have never complained, 

 but that the growing of fruit in the 

 vicinity of their apiaries was a great 

 benefit to their interests, hence their 

 position has been merely a defensive 

 one, the battle waxing warmer only 

 when poisonous substances were set out 

 to kill off the bees, or when fruit-growers 

 sprayed their orchards with poisonous 

 insccti(;ldes during the tirnc^ the trees 

 were in blossom, or again wlien efforts 

 were made to secure by legislation the 

 removal of bees from a certain locality 

 as nuisaiHU's. 



Fruit-growers first relented when close 

 observation and experiment showed 



that wasps bit open tender fruits, birds 

 pecked them, they cracked under the 

 action of sun and rains, and hail some- 

 times cut them, the bees only coming in 

 to save the wasting juices of the injured 

 fruit. The wide publicity given to the 

 results of the experiments made under 

 the direction of the United States ento- 

 mologists, and published in the report of 

 the Commissioner of Agriculture for 

 1885, have, no doubt, contributed 

 much to secure this change among fruit- 

 growers. 



But now it would appear that the bees 

 have not only been vindicated, but that 

 in the future fruit-growers are likely to 

 be generally regarded as more indebted 

 to bee-keepers than the latter are to the 

 fruit-growers, for the amount of honey 

 the bees secure from fruit-blossoms 

 comes far short of equaling in value that 

 part of the fruit crop which many accu- 

 rate observations and experiments indi- 

 cate is due to the complete cross-fertili- 

 zation of the blossoms by bees. 



The observations and researches of 

 Hildebrand, Muller, Delpino, Darwin, 

 and others, as well as the excellent ex- 

 planation of the subject in Cheshire's 

 recent work, have gone far to prove how 

 greatly blossoms depend upon the agency 

 of bees for their fertilization, and hence 

 for the production of seeds and fruits. 



The facts they have brought forward 

 are gradually becoming more widely 

 known among fruit-growers and bee- 

 keepers, and additional evidence accu- 

 mulates. A case illustrating very clearly 

 the value of bees in an orchard has re- 

 cently come to the notice of the writer, 

 and its authenticity is confirmed by cor- 

 respondence with the parties named, 

 who are gentlemen of long and extensive 

 experience in fruit-growing, recognized 

 in their locality as being authorities, 

 particularly in regard to cherry-culture. 

 The facts are these : ' 



For several weeks the cherry crop of 

 Vaca Valley, in Solano county, Calif., ■■ 

 has not been good, although it was 

 formerly quite sure. The partial or com- 

 plete failures have been attributed to 

 north winds, chilling rains, and similar 

 climatic conditions, but in the minds of 

 Messrs. Bassford, of Cherry Glen, these 

 causes did not sufficiently account for all 

 the cases of failure. 



These gentlemen recollect that form- 

 erly when tlu! cherry crops were good, 

 wild bees were very plentiful in the 

 valley, and Jienco thought perhaps the 

 lack of fruit since most of the bees had 

 disappeared, might be due to imperfect 

 distribution of tlu* pollen of the blossoms. 

 To test the matter they placed, there- 



