The Canadian Horticulturist. 183 



can be kept under control. I intend to try these bees again this season, but I feel 

 satisfied that, except in the hands of the specialist, these bees will not be likely 

 to prove a success. The Italian bees have stood the test for many years ; they are 

 g ?ntle, free from moth, robber proof to a large extent, and an all round good bee. 

 I think we should aim at having such bees. Now a fancy price need not be 

 paid for such bees ; sometimes they can be bought at the same price as hybrids, 

 at any rate for $1 more per colony. If they cannot be got for that, the 

 hybrid colony can be re-queened for $1 in the honey season. Now I admit 

 that many a hybrid colony may do as well as an Italian. I have no objections 

 to a dash of black blood unless to breed from, and no fancy price need be paid 

 for a good queen. Bees reproduce themselves very rapidly, and, correspondingly 

 rapidly, stock will run out. New blood should be infused to keep and improve 

 vitality. 



Brantford, Out R. F. Holterman, A. O. A. C. 



WHEN FRUIT TREES NEED BEES. 



N very fine seasons when the springs are bright, fine and mild, fruit 

 will doubtless set very well without the intervention of bees — the wind, 

 1$$^ assisted by the sunshine, being a sufficient agent for the distribution 

 ffi> of the pollen ; but in cold, wet seasons, says the author of Guide to 

 Bees, the aid of bees is unquestionably essential to the fertilization of 

 the bloom by carrying the pollen, not anywhere at haphazard, as the 

 wind does, but from blossom to blossom and nowhere else. 

 In wet and cold weather the pollen is more inclined to adhere to the 

 blossom than in fine, warm weather, and thus it is that the wind fails in un- 

 favorable seasons to secure that which can then be obtained only by the help 

 of bees — viz., the proper fertilization of the fruit blossom, with the result of a 

 proportionately abundant crop of fruit. 



I would invite any persons who may be incredulous on this point, to visit 

 in a professedly bad fruit year — say during August or the early part of Septem- 

 ber — the localities in which our great apiaries are situated. Let them carefully 

 view the country lying in a radius of two miles from the apiary itself, and they 

 will find that in almost every case the fruit trees are laden with heavy crops, 

 while they will observe as they get farther from the vicinity of the apiary (sup- 

 posing that not many bees are kept in the country around) that the fruit crops 

 steadily deteriorate. 



I am convinced that so soon as bee-keepers and fruit-farmers begin to 

 recognize the importance of the one industry in relation to the other, more 

 prosperous times will be in store for both, and we shall not only hear of better 

 fruit harvests, but of larger returns of honey also. 



