THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



177 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



WASHINGTON, MARCH, 18G8. 



' The (Vmerican Bee Joiiknal is now 

 publislicd monthly, in the City of Washington, 

 (D. C.,) at S2 per annum. All comnmnications 

 should be addressed to the Editor, at that place. 



Bees and Fruit- Blossoms. 



A silly prejudice against bees is entertained 

 by some fruit-growers, based on the notion that 

 the crops of fruit are injuriously etlccted, both 

 in (luality and quantitj', by the visits of bees 

 during the blossoming period. A more unfound- 

 ed notion, or one dciiving less support from ob- 

 sei'vation and science, can scarcely be conceived. 

 Yet it regularly looms up once or twice in a cen- 

 tury, and ci'eates as mucli alarm aud consterna- 

 tion among the wiseacres, us the appearance of 

 a comet used to do In by-gone days. 



Repeated instances of the resuscitation of this 

 prejudice, are presented in the history of bee- 

 culture in Germany, especially in the period be- 

 tween 1530 and 1800. On some of these occa- 

 sions it was so widely prevelant and so rabid in 

 its demonstrations, as to constraiu the almost 

 total abandonment of bee culture in districts 

 where fruit-raising bore sway. To the aid of 

 this came the substitution of cider and beer for 

 the ancient mead or metheglin, as the popular 

 beverage ; and amid such opposition and dis- 

 couragement, bee-culture rapidly sunk to be of 

 very subordinate interest, except in some favor- 

 able localities. 



In 1774. Count Anthony of Torrings-Seefeld, 

 in Bavaria, President of the Academy of Science 

 at Munich, striving to re-introduce bee-culture 

 on his patiimonial estate, found in this gene- 

 rally prevalent prejudice, the chief o1)stacle to 

 success. To overcome it, he labored assiduouslj" 

 to show that bees, far from being injurious, were 

 directly beneficial in the; fruotilication of blos- 

 soms — causing, the fruit to set, by conveying the 

 fertilizing pollen from tree to tree and from 

 llower to llower. He proved, moreover, by offi- 

 cial ftimily records, that a century earlier, when 

 bees were kept by every tenant on the estate, fruit 

 was abundant; whereas then, when only seven 

 kept bees, and none of these had more than 

 three colonies, fruit was scarcer than ever among 

 his tenaotry. 



At tlie Apiarian General Convention, held at 



Stuttgard, in Wirtembiu-g, in September, 1858, 

 the subject of honey-yielding crops being under 

 discussion, the ccdebratcd pomologist, Prof. 

 Lucas, one of the directors of the Hohenhiem 

 Institute, alluding to the prejudice, went on to 

 say— "Of more importance, however, is an imjiro- 

 ved management of our fruit trees. Here the 

 interests of the horticulturist and the l)ee-kee]5er 

 combine and run parallel. A judicious pruning 

 of our fruit trees will cause them to blossom 

 more freely and yield honey more plentifully. 

 I would urge attention to this on those particu- 

 larly who are both fruit-growers and bee-keepers. 

 A careful and observant bee-keeper at Potsdam 

 writes to me tliat his trees yield decidedly larr/er 

 crops since he has established an apiary in his or- 

 chard^ and the annual product is now more cer- 

 tain and regular than before, though his trees 

 had always received due attention." 



Some j'cars ago a wealthy lady in Germany 

 established a green-house at considerable cost, 

 and stocked it with a great variety of choice 

 native and exotic fruit trees — expecting in due 

 time to have renumeratingcrops. Time passed, 

 and aniuially there was a superabundance of 

 blossoms, witli only very little fruit. Various 

 plans were devised and adopted to bring the trees 

 into bearing, but without success, till it was sug- 

 gested that the blossoms needed fertilization, and 

 that by means of bees the needed work could be 

 effected. A hive of busy honey-gatherei-s was 

 introduced next season ; the remedy was effect- 

 ual — there was no longer any difficulty in pro- 

 ducing crops there. The bees distributed the 

 pollen, and the setting of the fruit followed nat- 

 urally. 



As a further illustration of this topic, we are 

 pleased to be able to lay before our readers the 

 following letter from Mr. Packard, one of the ed- 

 itors of the American Naturalist, with which we 

 have been obligingly favored by the gentleman 

 to whom it was addressed. We trust it maj' 

 contribute to prevent fruit-growers fi-oni doing 

 themselves harm, as they assuredly will do if 

 they allow their prejudices to give a wrong di- 

 rection to their zeal : 



Essex Institute, 



Salem. MiVSS., Jan. V, 18G8. 

 John J. Gould. Esq. 



Dear Sru : — In 

 answer to the question wli(?ther I)!M's are in any 

 way injurious to fruit, or lessen the quality or 

 quantity, I would reply tiiat all the evidence 

 given by botanists and zool')gists wlio have 

 specially studied this subject, shows that bees 

 increase the quality and tend to improve the 



