230 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



April, 1922 



portion as in water. Plants are able to com- 

 bine these elements in such a manner that 

 sugar and other carbohydrates are formed. 



Where Does Nectar Come From? 



Who owns the carbon and the water from 

 which the plant elaborates the nectar, which 

 the bee carries away across line fences? The 

 carbon is taken from the air where it exists 

 in the form of carbon dioxide, and the water 

 is carried to the farm on the wings of the 

 wind from ocean, lakes and ponds or wher- 

 ever the air can pick it up by evaporation, 

 except in arid regions where it is carried to 

 the farm in irrigation ditches. These ele- 

 ments, from which honey is made, also dis- 

 regard line fences and land ownership, roam- 

 ing freely over the earth. The carbon of 

 the amosphere and the rain come alike ' ' on 

 the just and on the unjust. ' ' Ownership of 

 either of these would be difficult to estab- 

 lish. 



When the miner takes out of the earth 

 coal, iron or oil he is depleting the resources 

 of the country. The fisherman and the lumber- 

 man destroy instead of create resources. The 

 manufacturer is usually a consumer of the 

 world's resources in manufacturing his prod- 

 uct. Commerce does not create resources 

 but only trades in them. Agriculture is 

 practically alone among the industries as a 

 creator instead of destroyer of resources. 

 But even the farmer is, to a certain extent, 

 a minor of the soil, for when he hauls cer- 

 tain crops from his farm he is hauling away 

 a portion of the wealth of the land. 

 Production of Nectar Does Not Deplete Soil. 



The beekeeper, being a producer of an al- 

 most pure carbohydrate, takes practically 

 nothing from the soil, the amount of ash in 

 honey being almost negligible. When he ships 

 his crop to market he is shipping away ma- 

 terial derived from air and water. No mat- 

 ter how many carloads or trainloads of hon- 

 ey are shipped out of a state, the resources 

 of the state are not touched by its removal. 

 Water and air can come back from beyond 

 state borders, if need be, to replace that 

 which was taken away in the elaboration of 

 the nectar from which the honey was made. 

 By nature 's wonderful magic, the world 's 

 supply of carbon and water is not used up 

 by the continued elaboration of sugar, for 

 these are only borrowed until the honey is 

 consumed, when they go back to the great 

 reservoir whence they came. The cycle of 

 carbon in nature and the part it plays in 

 plant and animal life is one of the wonder- 

 ful romances which science has to tell to 

 those who care to hear. 



Bees Usually Pay Well for What They Take. 



But in taking the nectar which the plant 

 lias appropriated from the air and passing 

 clouds, the honeybee in many cases renders 

 a service to the plant, and therefore to the 

 owner of the plant, which is of greater value, 

 measiired by human standards, than the 

 value of the nectar. Much has been written 



about the pollination of fruit and the rela- 

 tion of bees to horticulture. In 1909 Dr. E. 

 F. Phillips wrote in the U. S. Department of 

 Agriculture Bulletin No. 75, Part VI, as fol- 

 lows: 



Fruit-growers, as a rule, recognize the value of 

 the honeybee to their industry. Taking into con- 

 sideration the insurance of pollination by transport- 

 ing colonies of bees to places where their services 

 are needed, it is safe to say that the indirect bene- 

 fit of the beekeeping industry annually adds to the 

 resources of the country considerably more than the 

 amount received from the sale of honey and wax. 



Much has been learned in regard to the 

 value of the honeybee in cross-pollination 

 since 1909, and no doubt a revised state- 

 ment by the same author for 1922 would be 

 much stronger. 



At the short course for beekeepers at 

 Berkeley, Cal., in December, Prof. A. L. Hen- 

 drickson, in charge of deciduous fruit inves- 

 gations of the Agricultural Experiment Sta- 

 tion, University of California, gave some 

 striking figures on increased yields due to 

 bees. In one case a grower, with 180 acres 

 of prunes, increased the yield of prunes 

 nearly 100 tons above previous yields by 

 having a beekeeper put 115 colonies of 

 bees in the orchard during the period of 

 bloom. The prunes were sold at $120 per 

 ton, so the extra yield gave a gross return 

 of $12,000, or more than $100 for each col- 

 ony of bees used. For this service the bee- 

 keeper was paid $3.00 per colony, or $345.00. 



It is not necessary to discuss here the 

 value of bees to the grower of apples, cher- 

 ries, pears, plums, prunes, almonds, berries 

 of various kinds, cucumbers, beans and other 

 insect-pollinated fruits and vegetables, for 

 the value of bees to horticulture is already 

 well discussed in the beekeeping literature. 

 But it may be well to mention here some 

 of the studies that have been made recently 

 on the pollination of certain field crops. 



PoUination of Coffee. 



In 1911 the United Planters' Association 

 of southern India asked the government to 

 pass some rules prohibiting the destruction 

 of bees in the coffee-planting districts, on 

 account of a reduction in the coffee crops, 

 evidently brought about by the regular de- 

 struction of bees in certain districts. As a 

 result of this the Department of Agriculture 

 at Madras made a careful study of the fer- 

 tilization of coffee. Eesults of this investi- 

 gation were published in 1915, in Vol. IV, 

 Bulletin No. 69, Department of Agriculture, 

 Madras, which contains the following sum- 

 mary: 



The presence of bees is not essential for the suc- 

 cessful pollination of coffee, but the natural, and 

 therefore most desirable, form of pollination is 

 achieved by the aid of flower-visiting insects of 

 which bees are the most important. 



Ill this case the giant bee of India (Apis 

 (Inrsaia) is mentioned as the species referred 

 to, and recommendations are given for in- 

 creasing the numbers of these bees in the 

 coffee districts in order to increase the cof- 

 fee crops. 



