Feb. 7, 1907 



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the open air, for the colony was not 

 large enongh so the bees touched the 

 side of the hive in any place. They 

 were left thus all night, during which 

 the mercury went as low as ]6 degrees 

 below zero, yet the next morning the 

 bees were all right, even if 1 did expect 

 to find tluni dead. /Vnil wh;it was more, 

 they survived all of my experiments 

 with them, coming through all right in 

 the spring, and doing good work the 

 ne.xt summer. 



After all of the above, I came to the 

 conclusion that all talk about freezing 

 a good colony of bees when in a nor- 

 mal condition is a myth, and an impos- 

 sibility. 



Borodino, N. Y. 



Bee-Culture vs. Horticulture 



A jMtpfr rt'wl hefovi' a joint inerting of the Kaji- 



jiff.s- Stiitf Jttr-h'frpt't's^ Associtilivii and 



the .Stiitf /forticultitraf As.-<aciation 



BY C. P. DADANT. 



These two branches of agricultural 

 economy are allied to each other, and 

 may be carried on by the same producer, 

 tl us forming a profitable combination. 



There are, however, some persons 

 who think that these two industries 

 are antagonistic. A demonstration of 

 the incorrectness of these views will 

 make the subject of this address. 



There are two points upon which 

 wrongly-informed horticulturists think 

 that bee-culture is objectionable. The 

 first is the bees' influence upon the blos- 

 sons ; the other, their depredations upon 

 fruits. 



The bees are said to work injury 

 upon the blossoms of fruit-trees and 

 shrubs or plants, by removing the honey 

 and the pollen. A very elementary study 

 of the structure of blossoms will en- 

 lighten us upon these points. 



Bees Help Fruit-Bloom Fertiliz.\tion. 



In most of our fruits, the sexual parts 

 of the bloom are both to be found with- 

 in the corolla, the male part being the 

 stamens or pollen-producing organs, the 

 female part being the pistil or fruit- 

 bearing stem. It is only by the scatter- 

 ing of the pollen in minute quantity, 

 upon the pistil, that the blossom becomes 

 fertile. Pollen is a dust of different 

 shades, according to the blossoms from 

 which it is produced, which has the 

 power of making the fruit productive, 

 or to cause it to "set," as is popularly 

 said. This pollen, under the powerful 

 microscope of scientists, proves to be 

 composed of very minute round balls, 

 having much the shape and appearance 

 of osage oranges. These little pellets 

 are gathered by the bees to be used in 

 the larval food of the immature bee. 

 So it is not consumed by the adult in- 

 sect in any perceptible quantity. It is 

 carried to the hive upon the third pair 

 of legs in a cavity which nature seems 

 to have provided for this sole purpose. 

 Bees may be noticed laden with it, at 

 any time during the spring or summer 

 when returning to the hives, and many 

 uninformed persons have taken it to be 

 wax-pellets. But beeswa.x is produced 

 in the hive, from honey, by digestion. 



In gathering these pollen-grains, the 



bees shake them from the stamens which 

 have produced ihem and cause a num- 

 ber of them to fall upon the pistil. So 

 eager are they in the gathering of this 

 |iollen-dust that ihey are often covered 

 with it, from head to foot, as if they 

 had rolled in it. They comonly use the 

 tirst and second pair of legs to brush 

 it off their bodies and pack it into the 

 pollen-baskets on the tibia of the third 

 pair of legs. Not only does the action 

 of the bees scatter this fecundating dust 

 upon the female part of the flower it- 

 self, but it also distributes it from one 

 blossom to another, from one tree or 

 plant to another. In this way, in-and- 

 in breeding is avoided. Although in- 

 and-in breeding is very good to inten- 

 sify certain qualities of plants, it is well 

 known that this, when carried to ex- 

 cess, finally results in sterilit}', both in 

 plant and animal life. 



The action of bees and other insects 

 in bringing about a cross-fertilization is 

 well evidenced in the sporting of peaches, 

 which cannot usually be reproduced ex- 

 actly from the planting of the stone. A 

 still better evidence of the sporting 

 caused by insects is found in melons, 

 cucumbers and pumpkins, which when 

 planted in sufficient proximity to each 

 other will produce offspring which is 

 not cucumber, melon or pumpkin, but 

 a mixture of them. 



It has been ascertained that in nu- 

 merous fruit-blossoms this pollen trans- 

 portation and scattering on the part of 

 the insects, and of the bees in particular, 

 is indespensable to the proper fertiliza- 

 tion of the bloom. Observing horti- 

 culturists have noticed that their 

 orchards are never so full of fruit as 

 when they have had two or three days 

 of warm weather for the blossoms to 

 be visited by honey-gathering insects. 

 In the case of some blossoms, such as 

 the strawberry — of which some varieties 

 are imperfect and carry only pistils and 

 no stamens — it is indispensable that 

 some insect be able to carry the pollen 

 from the perfect blossoms to the imper- 

 fect ones. Strawberry growers well 

 know that some varieties must be ac- 

 companied by other varieties in order 

 to become productive, but even if they 

 were planted together, there would be 

 but very remote chances of cross-ferti- 

 lization if it were not for the agency 

 of the winged insect. 



So much for the removal of pollen 

 by the bee. But what of their absorp- 

 tion of the honey? Some say that the 

 honey exuded by the blossoms is re- 

 absorbed by these same blossoms, in 

 the support of the young fruit, and that 

 the removal of this honey works in- 

 jury to the fruit. Whether the honey is 

 absorbed or not, we have a very good 

 evidence that its removal works no in- 

 jury. The largest crops of honey in 

 our section of country are gathered 

 from white clover and Spanish-needles. 

 In Colorado, and in the West generally, 

 millions of pounds are gathered from 

 the alfalfa. 1 have yet to learn of a 

 single instance where those plants have 

 failed to produce a bountiful crop of 

 seed after having given a crop of honey. 

 On the contrary, it is proven that they 

 produce more .-^eeds after the bees have 

 had access to them. Mr. Samuel J. 

 Hunter, a State Entomologist, has made 



experiments and ascertained that the 

 seed-production is increased three-fifths, 

 at least, Ijy the work of the honey-bee 

 on alfalfa blossoms. 



Whether we believe in a fixed purpose 

 of progress in Nature, or in the invari- 

 able outcome from the survival of the 

 fittest, or in both of these theories 

 combined, we must acknowledge that 

 existence of honey-gathering insects 

 shows a beautiful adaptation to the con- 

 ditions of plant-life. 



Bees and Fruit. 



Let us now look upon the other ob- 

 jection to the culture of bees, in con- 

 nection with horticulture — their depre- 

 dations upon fruits. I think that, if it 

 can be shown that the bees prey only 

 upon damaged fruits, and this only in 

 exceptional circumstances, the verdict 

 will be in their favor, for damaged 

 fruit, when hanging upon the tree or 

 the vines, is of but little value. If not 

 harvested at once it will rot, and the 

 bees gather only that which would be 

 wasted. 



But do the bees damage sound fruit? 

 Or, better yet, can they damage sound 

 fruit? An examination of their mandi- 

 bles in comparison with those of many 

 hornets and wasps reveals the fact that 

 while the mandibles of the latter are 

 like saws, those of the bee are rounding 

 and deprived of teeth. Their jaws act 

 sidewise, instead of up and down as in 

 animals, and they are shaped like 

 spoons. They can grasp and hold an- 

 other bee or the stems of plants ; they 

 are made to manipulate soft substances 

 like beeswax. They can cut a hole in 

 a piece of cloth or in paper, but an ex- 

 amination of the manner in which they 

 do it will show that they first take hold 

 of some projecting thread and pull it 

 out, then take another, and keep pull- 

 ing till they have changed the apparent- 

 ly smooth piece of cloth into a rag. But 

 when it comes to the smooth skin of 

 a fruit, all they do is to remove the 

 soft down or bloom of the fruit, if they 

 travel upon it long enough ; but they 

 are no more able to bite into it than 

 a human being could bite into a smooth 

 plaster wall. 



This may be demonstrated by actual 

 test. The most expeditious method is 

 to place a bunch of ripe grapes inside 

 of a populous hive of bees, previously 

 puncturing a few of the berries and tak- 

 ing note of the number. After 24 hours 

 Or more, investigation will show that 

 the bees have sucked the juice out of 

 the punctured grapes, but have left the 

 others intact. They will go even as far 

 as covering with propolis or bee-glue 

 those grapes which they cannot use, as 

 they cover any foreign substance of 

 which they cannot get rid. 



Some persons assert that thej' are 

 sure the bees injure fruit because they 

 have seen them at work upon it, and 

 because large quantities of fruit, es- 

 pecially grapes, have been found entirely 

 destroyed, w'here bees only were found 

 upon them. This is simply a delusion 

 similar to that of the uninformed human 

 being who denies that the earth revolves 

 around the sun, because he sees the sun 

 rise and set, and because he cannot feel 

 the earth move; and argues also that if 

 the earth moved it would be impossible 



