1900 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



473 



most of us, and something very interesting 

 indeed. 



On the morning of May 17 (probably dur- 

 ing the apple-bloom) 16 bees were caught as 

 they came frorn their hives. They were im- 

 mediately killed and weighed, each one sepa- 

 rately. It was found their weights ranged 

 from .092 gram down to .071 gram. 



Right here, again, I will say that it would 

 be interesting to know why this difference be- 

 tween outgoing (empty ?) bees. I wish the 

 professor had made a post-mortem examina- 

 tion of these heavy bees. This might have 

 put us in a better position to draw correct con- 

 clusions from his observations. His figures 

 do not quite satisfy me. He figures out the 

 average weight of an empty bee at .079 gram. 

 I should not be surprised if that was reckon- 

 ing it too high. However, there may be that 

 difference of .021 gram between individual 

 bees of one queen's progeny. 



The professor, after finding out the weight 

 of outgoing (empty) bees caught 16 incoming 

 bees loaded with honey, and took their weight, 

 each one separately. The heaviest weighed 

 .122 gram, the lightest .073 ; the average he 

 found to be .094 gram. This makes the aver- 

 age load of honey weigh .015 gram, or about 

 19 per cent (one-fifth) of the bee's whole 

 ,weight. 



Pollen-laden bees were also caught, killed, 

 and their separate weights ascertained, the 

 same ranging from .075 gram to .098 gram, 

 with an average of .085 gram. Deducting 

 from this the average weight of the outgoing 

 bee we find the average load of pollen that 

 one bee carries to be .006 gram. 



On account of the great difference in the 

 weights of the outgoing bees, this manner of 

 reckoning is probably not quite reliable, but 

 it is the best we can do at present. 



By his further observations, and by careful 

 counting, the professor is lead to believe that 

 a bee does not gather pollen and houey at the 

 same time, or, better said, on one trip. He 

 has killed scores of pollen-laden bees as they 

 entered their hives, and never found any more 

 honey than one is likely to find in worker-bees 

 when they leave their hive. 



Another of his observations may be of in- 

 terest. He stated that, by painstaking count- 

 ing, he found pollen-gathering bees to visit 

 from 3 to 5 times as many blossoms as honey- 

 gatherers. 



BEES, AND SPRAYING FRUIT-BI,OOM WITH 

 ARSENITES. 



In the states where bee-keepers are awake 

 to their interests they have, I believe, succeed- 

 ed in having laws passed against spraying 

 fruit-trees while in bloom. This they accom- 

 plished on the mere strength of their belief 

 that bees would be and had been poisoned by 

 visiting sprayed bloom. Positive proof that 

 bees were ever poisoned was really lacking. 

 But, as Prof. A. J. Cook says, "We spray po- 

 tato-vines with poison, and the bugs disap- 

 pear. We do not make a post-mortem exami- 

 nation to find out whether the dead bugs have 

 Paris green in their stomachs, but are satisfied 

 with the apparent result of our spraying, and 

 the fact thai the bugs are gone. ' ' 



We have taken the same ground in the case 

 of bees. The trees had been sprayed, and the 

 bees have died as the result. Many scientists, 

 however, have not been satisfied with our 

 opiniative proof. They refuse to accept what 

 bee-keepers thought they had good reason to 

 believe. The Ohio Agricultural Experiment 

 Station has now published the experiments 

 they have made in order to test the matter, 

 and they hereby furnish the missing link in 

 the chain of proof now available. How mi- 

 nutely and extensively the work was carried 

 out may be judged from the few following 

 facts : Separate analyses were made of thorax, 

 posterior legs, and abdomens of bees which 

 were known (or at least strongly suspected) 

 to have died from arsenical poisoning while 

 working on the sprayed bloom. The bees 

 were first washed in three different ammonia 

 waters to ascertain whether any poison adher- 

 ed to the bees' exteriors, and to remove such. 

 In some cases slight traces of arsenic were 

 found in the ammonia water. Thoraxes and 

 also posterior legs, with the pollen adhering, 

 analyzed gave no traces of arsenic. This is 

 contrary to my expectations. I should surely 

 expect the pollen to contain poison as well as 

 the honey. In stored honey taken from near- 

 ly ruined colonies, no traces of arsenic could 

 be detected ; but the abdomens of bees ana- 

 lyzed revealed unmistakable traces of the poi- 

 son. 



In summing up, the station says : " We be- 

 lieve that we have the first conclusive proof 

 of the effect on bees of the use of arsenical 

 poisons in the orchard while trees are in 

 bloom. We can see no other conclusion that 

 can be diawn from the result of our experi- 

 ments than that bees are liable to be poisoned 

 by spraying the bloom of fruit-trees, the lia- 

 bility increasing in proportion as the weather 

 is favorable for the activity of the bees ; that 

 all bloom must have fallen from the trees be- 

 fore the danger will have ceased." 



The bee keepers of our land owe the Exper- 

 iment Station of Ohio a vote of thanks. 



One more point I wish the station had not 

 been silent on. I should like to know the 

 whole truth. It would interest me to know 

 how much of a crop these trees, sprayed while 

 in bloom, bore as compared with the others 

 not so sprayed. Our esteemed friend E. T. 

 Abbott said at the Buffalo convention, that a 

 fruit-blossom is so delicate it can not even 

 bear a drenching of water, much less of Bor- 

 deaux or Paris-green mixture. If that is true, 

 spraying it would necessarily and totally ruin 

 the fruit crop, and no sensible fruit-grower 

 would try that more than once. I, at the 

 same time, gave expression to my view, that 

 spraying the bloom might not prove to be so 

 damaging to the fruit prospects as it would be 

 useless and unnecessary work. The Ohio 

 Experiment Station should be in position to 

 decide that point. If the fruit-grower could 

 be made to believe that he would injure his 

 fruit crop by spraying the bloom, then, of 

 course, he would not spray. But I believe it 

 is always best not to exaggerate, but stay with- 

 in the limits of truth, if we know what that is. 



Naples, N. Y., March 26. 



