254 



THE AMERICAN APICULTUBIST. 



bees gathering hone}' on his lands, 

 to be taken away and stored up for 

 the benefit of other parties. A case 

 may be supposed where tlie owner 

 of an apiary has little or no land of 

 his own, except that upon which 

 his hives stand, and yet is known 

 to send away many tons of honey 

 each season, all gathered from the 

 fields of his neighbors. These 

 neighbors, supposing them to be 

 not very well-informed, might nat- 

 urally jump to the conclusion that 

 the hone}' belonged by right to 

 them, and even that there was so 

 much of the substance of their soil 

 being taken away from them year 

 by year, and that their land must 

 therefore become impoverished. 

 If, however, they possessed such 

 an amount of knowledge as ought 

 to be considered indispensable for 

 intelligent agriculturists working 

 on rational principles, they should 

 be able, upon reflection, to see that 

 such ideas were entirely ground- 

 less. Nevertheless, it would ap- 

 pear that the required modicum of 

 reflection is not always given to 

 the subject, because the complaint 

 is sometimes made, in a more or 

 less vague manner by persons who 

 ought to know better, and even 

 beekeepers appear sometimes in- 

 clined to adopt an apologetic tone, 

 seeking to argue that "bees do 

 much more good than harm, " in- 

 stead of taking the much higher, 

 and the only true ground, by as- 

 serting that bees, while conferring 

 great benefits on agriculture, do no 

 harm whatever^ and that the pres- 

 ence of an apiary on, or close to, his 

 land, can he nothing but an advan- 

 tage to the agriculturist. 



The l)enefits arising to the agri- 

 culturist from the labor of the bee 

 are now so generally understood 

 and acknowledged that it might, 

 perhaps, be suflficient here to men- 

 tion tliem without citing any special 

 authorities to prove the facts. For- 

 merly the bee may have been ad- 



mired only on account of the 

 epicurean taste with which it 

 sought out, and the indnstr}' with 

 which it stored, the sweets obtaina- 

 ble from blossoms of all sorts. 

 Later, when botany became a sci- 

 ence, it was discovered that insects 

 of many sorts, but above all the 

 honey bee, performed a part in the 

 fertilization of the blossoms visited 

 by them ; but it is not so very long 

 ago since phj^siologists became 

 fully aware of the great importance 

 of this intervention of insects, lead- 

 ing as it does not only to the simple 

 fertilization, but to the cross-fertil- 

 ization of plants. It is found to be 

 a law of nature in the development 

 of vegetable as well as animal life, 

 that in-and-in breedingtends to the 

 deterioration of the species, hence 

 the desirability in all cases, and the 

 absolute necessity in some in- 

 stances, of cross-fertilization in the 

 vegetable kingdom, and as the in- 

 dividual plants have no volition 

 and no power of changing their po- 

 sition, the end can only be obtained 

 by means of insects carrying the 

 pollen of one plant to the pistil of 

 another of the same species. It is 

 now recognized by all botanists 

 and physiologists as indisputable 

 that the saccharine matter is sup- 

 plied to the nectaries of flowers for 

 the special purpose of inducing the ■ 

 visits of insects, the most eflicient 

 of which is the hone}' bee. The 

 most beautiful arrangements are 

 found in some plants to insure a 

 cross-fertilization by depositing the 

 honey in such a position that the 

 insect can only reach it after hav- 

 ing passed the pistil, and only upon 

 leaving the nectary has to rub itself 

 against the anthers, and so charge 

 itself with pollen to be conveyed to 

 the pistil of the next plant which it 

 visits. How wonderfully the in- 

 stinct of the honey bee adapts it to 

 perform this oflSce of cross-fertili- 

 zation may be seen by any one who 

 will watch the movements of bees 



