86 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 



"3. Aphids can and do inoculate trees with the bacteria of 

 fire-blight. 



"4. The amount of fire-blight infection in an orchard may be 

 materially decreased by destroying all of the aphids which may 

 appear there." 



Injury to Cultivated Flowers. 



Occasionally a beekeeper says that bees are injuring cultivated 

 flowers, grown perhaps professionally by the floriculturists. The 

 bees can hardly with justice be blamed. They are responding 

 merely to their natural inclinations, namely to secure pollen or 

 nectar. Having visited a flower and perhaps pollinated it, the 

 flower at once responds according to its natural inclination, with 

 the results that it drops its petals. In this way bees may cause 

 flowers to pass more quickly than might be desired. It is pursuant 

 to the law which was observed in the prolonged blooming period 

 of apple orchards due to lack of pollination and which is mentioned 

 above. If flowers are grown under glass and bees tend to mature 

 them too rapidly, the floriculturist may exclude the bees by screen- 

 ing his greenhouse windows. Snapdragons are an example of a 

 flower which quickly responds to pollination and drops its lower 

 blooms, thus giving a ragged or unsightly stalk. A floriculturist 

 on one occasion called the writer's attention to a considerable 

 quantity of snapdragon which had been injured, from the market 

 standpoint, by having been visited and pollinated by bees. How- 

 ever, on the whole this type of injury by bees can hardly be credited 

 as being usual or severe. 



Spraying vs. Beekeeping. 



Of late there has been considerable discussion among the fruit 

 growers and others who practice spraying and the beekeepers. 

 Beekeepers have claimed severe losses due to injudicious and 

 improper spraying. It is a pleasure to say the beekeepers are not 

 narrow enough to presume that spraying should be stopped and 

 yet, there is justification for their presumption that spraying should 

 be done properly and in such a way as not to injure or destroy their 



