46 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Jan. 15. 



and cultivated, were raised without the aid of 

 the honey-bee. I might here add that the 

 Mormons found the same state of affairs to 

 exist in Utah that the early American settlers 

 found on the Pacific Slope. So much fpr history, 

 now for personal observation. 



The winter of 1871 will long be remembered 

 by the bee-keepers of that time as one of great 

 disaster. Fully 75 per cent of all the apiaries of 

 Eastern Iowa and Western Illinois were wiped 

 outof existence, and the others were so decimat- 

 ed that, in nearly every case, not more than three 

 or four hives of bees were left, and those were 

 very weak during the early part of the follow- 

 ing summer. Several apiaries with which I 

 was acquainted, that had contained 100 hives 

 of bees and over, were entirely wiped out of 

 existence, and bee-keepers in Muscatine Co., 

 Iowa, and in the adjoining county of Mercer, 

 in Illinois, sent to Western Kentucky for a sup- 

 ply of bees to get a new start. These bees were 

 not brought until after fruit-bloom. The cause 

 of the great mortality to bees was said to be 

 poisoned honey that had been gathered by them 

 during the previous summer. In the summer 

 of 1872 we had a good crop of fruit, although 

 there were no bees to fertilize the bloom. I 

 have also a record that shows that it was a 

 good year for nuts, and that walnuts and hick- 

 orynuts were plentiful. 



I now wish to draw your attention as a fruit- 

 grower to the methods in vogue in securing the 

 proper fertilization of strawberries. No fruit- 

 grower would think of planting a variety of 

 strawberry that was pistillate more than 1(J 

 feet from a staminate variety. If he did, he 

 would not expect to secure much of a crop from 

 them for want of proper fertilization. If, as 

 has been so often asserted, the proper fertiliza- 

 tion is secured by the honey-bees, then there 

 would be no necessity of this close planting, as 

 the bee usually, in its flight from flower to 

 flower, covers much more than the distance 

 mentioned. I must, however, say that, after 

 close observation in my 20 years' experience as 

 a fruit-grower, I never knew bees to work on 

 strawberry bloom to any extent, and some 

 years they scarcely visit the strawberries at all 

 when in bloom; yet they were properly -fertiliz- 

 ed, and produced a good crop, showing conclu- 

 sively that the fertilization of the strawberry 

 takes place without the aid of honey-bees. 



As boy and man I have kept bees for over 40 

 years, and during the first 30 years of my ex- 

 perience I frequently sowed buckwheat, so that 

 my bees would have fall pasture; but I have to 

 record the fact that more than half the time 

 that I raised buckwheat my bees never gather- 

 ed a pound of buckwheat honey, and yet it 

 never made any difference whether the bees 

 worked on the buckwheat bloom or not. 1 got 

 a crop of buckwheat ail the same. Nature did 

 its own fertilizing. Four years ago one of my 

 neighbors had five acres of buckwheat within 



half a mile of my apiary of 3.5 hives of bees, and 

 I watched that buckwheat closely, in hopes of 

 getting a good supply of fall honey; but ray 

 bees never visited it, and I got no buckwheat 

 honey; but my neighbor did get a good crop of 

 buckwheat. 



Basswood is one of our best sources of honey, 

 and basswood raises seed just the same as 

 fruit-trees raise fruit, and it is just as neces- 

 sary that the bloom of basswood and other 

 forest-trees be fertilized to make them bear as 

 it is that fruit-trees should be fertilized for the 

 same purpose. Some seasons I have known 

 basswood-trees to be laden with bloom, and the 

 bees worked on it in swarms from daylight 

 until dark, and the same years the trees would 

 be full of seed, and other years the trees would 

 be loaded with bloom, and not a bee would 

 visit them, and yet the trees would be loaded 

 with seed. The past summer was just such a 

 season with us. Every day during basswood 

 bloom I passed ten or twelve basswood-trees 

 from four to six times in making my trips to 

 market with berries; and although the trees 

 were fairly covered with the large clusters of 

 bloom, a careful watch never showed a single 

 bee on any of the trees, and yet those trees 

 were properly fertilized, as shown by the large 

 crop of seed. 



I have been living where I now live, for 22 

 years, and in my dooryard are several good- 

 sized oak-trees. I have watched those trees 

 when in bloom, and find that some years the 

 bees work on the bloom, and other years they 

 take no notice of it whatever, and it makes no 

 difference whether the bees work on it or not. 

 The trees raise acorns every year when they 

 bloom. Wheat, oats, and other small grain, 

 produce pollen just the same as fruit and forest 

 trees, and fertilization is just as necessary to 

 them as to fruits; yet the claim is never made 

 that bees are necessary to the fertilization of 

 these crops. The fact is. bees do so little work 

 on them that they are lost sight of in a discus- 

 sion of this question. It must be admitted, 

 however, that, if nature can properly fertilize 

 these crops without the aid of bees, it can fer- 

 tilize fruit or any other crop without their aid. 

 Sometimes the statement is made, that cer- 

 tain kinds of fruit in certain specified localities 

 have failed to produce fruit, and that the intro- 

 duction of bees into that locality has caused an 

 entire change, the bees being credited with fer- 

 tilizing the bloom, and thus causing the trees 

 to become fruitful. This claim, in the absence 

 of more pronounced experiments, is not to be 

 replied on. Many orchards have failed to bear 

 fruit for a number of years, and then become 

 fruitful, although bees were plentiful every 

 year. In the sirring of 1892 ray orchard blooraed 

 profusely, as did all other orchards in Musca- 

 tine Co. The spring was rather wet, but yet 

 there were days when the bees worked briskly, 

 and gathered both honey and pollen, and yet 



