m<>i 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



47 



we had no fruit. The cause of the failure to 

 bear fruit was not for want of proper fertiliza- 

 tion. The present year we had no apples, and 

 other tree-fruits were scarce, and the cause of 

 the failure was not for the want of proper fer- 

 tilization, but from other causes. We are in 

 hopes of a good crop of fruit next year; and if 

 we get it we sliall not give tlie bees the credit, 

 as they failed to give us a crop the past two 

 years; and should the same or a similar calami- 

 ty that overtook the bees in 1871 overtake and 

 wipe tnem out of existence, and should we get 

 a good crop of fruit next summer, we will not 

 blame the bees for our failure the past two 

 years, for we know the causes have been en- 

 tirely outside of any influence they have had. 



There is much more that might be written on 

 this subject; but enough has been given to 

 show that there are two sides to this question, 

 and that the only way to bring out all the facts 

 and arguments bearing on the subject is to 

 have an unbiased and unprejudiced discussion 

 of the same. 



I might add, that, after 30 years' study of the 

 matter. I now believe that nature never intend- 

 ed that vegetable productions, in their love- 

 embrace, should ever require the aid of a third 

 party, any more than the human family or 

 animals, and that nature has furnished every 

 living species or kind the power to reproduce 

 itself within itself. W. S. Fui-tz. 



Muscatine, la. 



[This is pretty well answered an article which 

 we published in 1891, Sept. 1.5, from the pen of 

 Prof. Cook. Our comment appears further on. 

 It is not our custom to reprint old articles; but 

 in this discussion many of our present readers 

 may not be able to refer to the back number 

 mentioned.] 



The producers of flower-seeds iti our cities keep 

 bees in their greenhouses, as they And this the easi- 

 est and elieiipt'st method to secure tliat more per- 

 fect fertilization upon which their profits depend. 

 Secretary Fariisworth, of the Ohio Horticultural 

 Society, could account for- a very meager crop of 

 fruit a few years since, in his vicinity, after a pro- 

 fusion of bh.om. only through lack of pollenizaf ion. 

 The bees had nearly all died off the previous winter. 

 I have often noted tlie fact, that, if we have rain 

 and cold all during the fruit-bloom, as we did in the 

 spring of 1890, even trees that bloom fully are al- 

 most sure to bear as sparingly. 



Darwin's researches considered Insects as a whole, 

 and it is true that all insects that visit flowers, ei- 

 ther for nectar or i)ollen, do valuable service in this 

 work of poUenization. Thus many of the hymen- 

 optera, diptera, and coleoptera, and not a few lepi- 

 doptera, are our ever ready helpers as poUenizers. 

 Yet early in the season, in our northern latitudes, 

 most insects are scarce. The severe winters so thin 

 their numljers that we find barely one, whereas we 

 can find hundreds in late siunnier and early au- 

 tumn. In late summer the bumble-bees and paper- 

 making wasps number scores to each colony, while 

 in spring only one fertile female will be found. 

 This is less conspicuously true of solitary insects. 



like most of our native bees, and wasps; yet eveu 

 these swarm in late summer, where they were soli- 

 tary or scattering in the early spring. The honey- 

 bees are a notable exception to this rule. They live 

 over winter, so that even in early spring w^ may 

 find ten or fifteen thousand in a single colcmy, in 

 lieu of one solitary female, as .seen in the nest of 

 bombus or vespa. By actual count in time of fruit- 

 bloom in May. 1 have fou.id the bees twenty to one 

 of all other insects upon the flowers; and on cool 

 days, which are very common at this early season, I 

 have known hundreds of bees on the fruit-blossoms, 

 while I could not' find a single other insect. Thus we 

 see that the honey-bees are exceedingly important 

 in the economy of vegetable growth and fruitage, 

 especially of all such plants as blossom early in the 

 season. We have all noticed how much more com- 

 mon our flowers are in autumn than in spring time. 

 In spring we hunt for claytonia, the trillium, and 

 the erythronium. In autumn we gather the asters 

 and goldenrods by the armful, and they look up 

 at us from every marsh, fence-corner, and com- 

 mon. In May our flowers demand a searcli. while in 

 California the fields of January and February are 

 one sea of blossoms. The mild California winters 

 do not kill the insects. There a profusion of bloom 

 will receive service from these so-called " marriage- 

 priests," and a profusion of seed will greet the com- 

 ing spring time. Thus our climate acts upon the 

 insects, and the insects upon the flowers, and we 

 understand why our peculiar flora was developed. 

 Yet notwithstanding the admiral)le demonstrations 

 of the great master Darwin, and the observations 

 and practice of a few of our intelligent practical 

 men, yet the great mass of our farmers are either 

 ignorant or indifferent as to this matter, and so to 

 the important practical con.siderations which wait 

 upon it. This is very evident, as appears from the 

 fact that many legislators the past winter, when 

 called upon to protect the bees, jirged that fruit- 

 growers had interests as well as the bee-men, not 

 seeming to know that one of the greatest of these 

 interests rested with the very bees for which pro- 

 tection was asked. 



Now that we understand the significance of the 

 law of adaptation in reference to the progressive 

 development of species, we easily understand why 

 our introduced fruits that blossom early would find 

 a lack of the "marriage-priests," and why it would 

 be a matter of necess'ty to introduce the honey-bee, 

 which, like the fruits, are not indigenous to our 

 country, just as the bumble-bee must go with the 

 red clover, if the latter is to succeed at once in far- 

 oft' New Zealand. 



It is true, that we have native apples, cherries, 

 plums, etc. But these, like the early insects, were 

 scattering, not massed in large orchards, and very 

 liKely the fruitage of these, before the introduction 

 of the honey-bee, may have been scant and meager. 



Now that spraying our fruit-trees with the arsen- 

 ites, early in the spiing, is known to be so profitable, 

 and is coming and will continue to come more gen- 

 erally into use, and as such spraying is fatal to the 

 bees if performed dining the time of bloom, and 

 not only fatal to the imago, but to the brood to 

 which it is fed in the hive, it becomes a questu)n of 

 momentous importance that all should know that 

 bees are valuable to the fruit-grower and the api- 

 arist alike, and that the pomologist *ho poisons the 

 bees is surely killing the goose that laid the golden 

 egg. That bees are easily poisoned by applying 



