APRIL 15, 1916 317 



HOW THE BEES HELPED TO PRODUCE A RECORD CROP OF APPLES 



BY GEORGE H. WEST 



1 want to tell something about the polli- 

 nating of the fniit-bloom in my orchaid in 

 the spring of 1911, as the crop I had that 

 year (amounting to over $11,000) was the 

 greatest the orchard ever yielded. 



There are some twenty-eight acres of 

 bearing applies on this forty-acre square, 

 the rest being largely in alfalfa located in 

 the southeast corner. In 1909 and 1910 

 also I had good crops from the orchard as 

 I had plenty of bees on the alfalfa ground. 

 The winter of 1910 was sevei-e, and the 

 owner of the bees lost most of them. Very 

 early in the spring, having bought land 

 about a mile northeast of the orchards, he 

 removed to his own land the bees he had 

 left. 



On going into the orchards about May 1 

 I was startled by hearing no bees among 



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the blossoms which were just opening. I 

 went carefully over the whole orchard and 

 some others adjoining it, but there was si- 

 lence everywhere instead of the usual hum- 

 ming of the bees. I became alarmed, for I 

 knew that, if there were no bees, there 

 would be no apples. Altho the loss in bees 

 the winter before had been serious, as I 

 have said, by some effort I secured twenty 

 vigoious colonies and had them moved that 



night to a location in the northwest corner 

 of my orchard. This location was chosen 

 for two reasons. First, Winesaps, of which 

 there were twenty-two acres, are rather 

 poor pollenizers, but are very receptive to 

 the pollen of other apple-trees; and the 

 Ben Davis, Missouri Pippins, Jonathans, 

 and Ganos in my neighbor's orchards join- 

 ing my land north and west, are all good 

 pollen-bearers. Second, our prevailing 

 winds are from the northwest and west; 

 and as we have many high winds I believed 

 the bees would work better from that loca- 

 tion. 



During the blooming i^eriod the weather 

 was bright and warm, and two days after 

 moving in the bees when I went over the 

 orchard again I heard the humming of bees 

 everywhere. 



After the blooming period, and when we 

 began spraying, the owner removed the 

 bees. I never had bees as near my Wine- 

 saps as I had that year, and have never had 

 as large a crop before nor since. The bees 

 were about the center of the 160 acres, 

 nearly all in apples, and my neighbors also 

 had record crops that year. 



The Winesap tree shown in the illustra- 

 tion* is one of 952. In 1910 this tree yield- 

 ed twenty field-boxes (bushels) of apples; 

 and in 1911, the year this photogTaph 

 was taken, and the year the bees were so 

 close, the tree yielded thirty-sis bushels in 

 spite of the fact that the young fruit was 

 thinned down twice. From this tree we 

 packed thirty bushels of apples which sold 

 for $44.50 cash. The 952 trees averaged 

 over seven packed boxes per tree that year, 

 netting me over $10 per tree. 



In conclusion I wish to say that I have 

 good pollination and plenty of bloom every 

 year; and, except for the hazards of the 

 winter and spring freezes, and damage by 

 hail, I should have good apple crops every 

 year. 



Colorado Springs, Col. 



* Cover engraving of this issue. — Ed. 



SUBURBAN BEEKEEPING 



BV J. H. DONAHEY 



[Mr. Donahey, as our readers know, is the cartoonist of the Cleveland Plain Dealer, whose clever work 

 attracts attention from all parts of the country. He was a beekeeper before we became acquainted with him, 

 and it was the occasional beehive in his cartoons that made us suspect that he knew something about bees. 

 He is the originator, of course, of the Backlot Buzzer. — Ed.] 



I am sending you a feAV snapshots taken 

 in ray small suburban beeyard. It overlooks 

 a ravine, and is on a timbered hill sloping 



to the east, and was utilized as the only 

 available place where the hives coidd be 

 located. Running thru the vallev is a small 



