FEBRUARY 15, 1916 



FT" — -tr 



157 



A liiaiirli I 1 1 \ I iliern Spy apple-tree covi-ii d with luosquito-bar during the blossoming period to keep 

 the bees away, 'liieie were 876 blossoms on this one branch. The rest of the tree bore a normal crop. 

 There were just five apples on this branch, and three of these dropped before becoming ripe. The bees are 

 necessary for pollination of the blossoms. 



been introduced was opened soon after, and 

 no queen could be found. It is reasonable 

 to suiTpose that she came out, or was drag- 

 ged out, and found her way back to her 

 nucleus. 



There is a man out in the country who 

 has several box hives of blacks. He sells 

 prime swarms to me for 50 cents apiece. 



I furnish hives and frames. He hives them. 

 He is well satisfied, and so am I. The 

 blacks are requeened with Italians. He 

 says there is more money selling prime 

 swarms than raising honey. He says the 

 box hives are good enough for him, and 

 less trouble. 



Providence, R. I. 



AS GLIMPSED THRU THE CAMERA 



Some Common and Uncommon Sights Among the Bees 



BY H. H. ROOT 



The experiment of covering a branch of 

 a fruit-tree with incsquito-bar while it is in 

 blossom in order to show the loss in fruit 

 by keeping bees and other insects away 

 during the blossoming period is not new. 

 Experiment stations and individuals have 

 before proved the value of the bees in this 

 way. A couple of years ago a similar ex- 

 periment (?) was tried with rather astound- 

 ing results. One of the suburban m.agazines 

 under " Practical Hints " gravely published 

 an illustrated article from a contributor 

 who said that he had found that draping 

 his young fruit-trees with mosquito-bar 

 during blossoming-time kept the bugs from 

 bitinrj the blossoms and otherwise destroy- 

 ing them ! This writer was evidently so 

 blinded by the anticipated vision of the al- 



inighty dollar or two that he would receive 

 for his contribution that he did not notice 

 that what he wrote was fiction rather than 

 fact. We wrote the publishers a letter of 

 exiDlanation, and they jjublished our letter 

 in full without comment, no doubt being too 

 full for utterance. The picture which they 

 had printed Avas very much like the one 

 shown herewith except that the tree was 

 smaller, and all of it was tied up with the 

 mosquito-bar. 



Last spring, simply for our own satisfac- 

 tion, we covered one of the branches of a 

 Northern Spy apple-tree with a bee-tent, 

 tying strings closely around the branch so 

 as to make a sort of bag, enclosing the whole 

 branch. This was just before the blossoms 

 liad fully opened. Just before tying on the 



