1906 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



1427 



G0VERN3IEXT LEASE OF BEE TERRI- 

 TORY. 



Is this Possible? Some of the Difficulties 

 that Such a Plan AVould Lead to. 



BY K. F. HOLTERMANN. 



On page 991 J. A. Green hopes that gov- 

 ernments will take possession of all bee ter- 

 ritory as something separate from the land 

 and lease, or sell it by itself. I have a large 

 number of colonies, and keep them in fairly 

 good shape, and could probably pay as much 

 for the right as any one. Personally, it suits 

 me exactly. When we look at it from a 

 l)roader standpoint, however, would this be 

 right? If it is true, and we know it is, that 

 bees are so valuable for the fruit garden and 

 orchard, the vegetable-grower, the clover- 

 seed and buckwheat grower, are they who 

 produce the nectar to have no recognized 

 rights? For them, the more bees the better. 

 Is this not a proposition to curtail the work 

 of the bee to the advantage of one who does 

 nothing to produce the nectar, and the dis- 

 advantage of the one who should primarily 

 te consulted? If I have ten colonies of bees, 

 other things being equal I can pay more 

 than the man who has one, and yet these ten 

 colonies may not be any thing like the num- 

 ber of bees that could give the best I'esults to 

 the producer of the nectar. 



When it comes to saying what number of 

 colonies shall be kept upon a square mile, 

 and restricting their flight, who shall decide 

 this number? and what a difference in square 

 miles! and I wish to warn friend Green not 

 to bring any of his colonies near the interna- 

 tional boundary line unless he pays for three 

 to nine miles of territory in Canada, and not 

 then unless he pays Uncle Sam for the impor- 

 tation of the goods. We all feel we should 

 like to do something; but the subject is so 

 complicated, there are so many rights to con- 

 sider, that in all probability until the millen- 

 nial period it will not be solved. 



There are, as has often been pointed out, 

 many somewhat parallel cases. A man goes 

 into a section of country. There is room for 

 one store, and he buys, builds, and invests. 

 Then another man comes in, and one must 

 go to the wall. We have very clear proof of 

 many such cases. The number of colonies a 

 given territory can support is a much more 

 uncertain question; and then, as before stated, 

 in discussing this question we have heretofore 

 either done it from a bee-keeper's standpoint, 

 and his interests alone, ignoring the primary 

 right of the agriculturists who own the source 

 of the nectar, or we have stultified ourselves 

 by denying in principle the value of bees in 

 the fertilization of blossoms. It is useless to 

 do either one or the other, even were we dis- 

 posed to "blow hot and blow cold," for the 

 facts and line of reasoning are only too pat- 

 ent to any one to attempt to show otherwise. 



I might add, how unfair it would be to say 

 so many colonies for each square mile. Some 

 could support hundreds of colonies, others 

 none at all. If the teri'itorv were valued. 



who would be the government official or oth- 

 erwise who would have the nerve to presume 

 to knowenou^li to do the job? If no one in 

 the United States or Canada had the neces- 

 sary quantity, what use for other countries 

 to attempt it? If they did, a few years often 

 change the agricultural conditions to such an 

 extent that the value is changed. If the priv- 

 ilege is auctioned off, then the man with 100 

 colonies can put ten men with 75 colonies 

 out of business. That will not do, surely. 

 What, then, will do? 

 Brantford, Ont., Can. 



[There is a great deal of truth in what our 

 correspondent says on this point. However 

 much we may desire it, it is a will-o'-the- 

 wisp that we shall probably never attain. — 

 Ed.] 



. ■ .t x tl 



BEE-KEEPING AND HORTICULTURE. 



Extracts from a Horticultural 3Ieetins at 



Mol)erly, Mo., which go to Show that 



it does Not Pay to Spray the 



Blossoms. 



BY J. W. ROUSE. 



(Pres. of the Missouri State Bee-keepers' Association.) 



We attended this meeting and made our 

 address on the subject assigned us, "Bee- 

 keeping in Relation to Horticulture." In 

 our address we referred to the many tests 

 made by many of the relation of bees to the 

 successful growing of fruit, besides giving 

 some experiences and observations of our 

 own. Our main thought in attending this 

 meeting was to speak on spraying during 

 fruit-bloom. Before making our address we 

 had the pleasure of listening to Mr. W. M. 

 Scott, of the U. S. Department of Agriculture, 

 who made an address on spraying fruit- 

 trees. He made a very comprehensive talk, 

 using a chart to explain his experience. We 

 noticed that he advised to spray just before 

 the blooming time, and then not until after 

 the bloom had fallen. We felt sure he had a 

 reason for not spraying when bloom was 

 out, so we asked him why not spray then. 

 He then knew nothing of us at all. While 

 we thought we anticipated his reason, we 

 must say we did not dream of such an ans- 

 wer as we got, which was, spraying when in 

 bloom could be done fully as well and with 

 all the same results either before or after the 

 bloom had fallen; but to cap it off he stated 

 that in many experiments made, to spray 

 while in bloom often did great damage to 

 the bloom itself, and in some cases destroyed 

 the prospects for a crop of fruit entirely, the 

 poison so damaging the fertilizing element 

 in the bloom as to ruin it for fruit. 



After him Mr. J. C. Evans, a life member 

 of the society, and who has been its honored 

 president for twenty years or more in its 

 early history, and who is, so far as the writer 

 knows, the largest fruit-grower in the world, 

 stated he had tried spraying while in bloom 

 thoroughly, and was fully satisfied it is an 

 injury to do so at that time. There were 

 manv others who corroborated these state- 



