1907 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



1431 



cause of the great good to the industry as a 

 whole 



At this time he referred to the fact that 

 Professor Martin, of the Division of Farm- 

 ers' Institutes of Pennsylvania, had ex- 

 pressf'd a willingness to make bee-keeping a 

 subject for discussion at the institutes Soon 

 after, the gentleman himself came into the 

 room, when he was introduced by Professor 

 Surface. The former showed that he was 

 interested in bee culture by stating that he 

 had requested the State Bee keepers' Associ- 

 ation to name persons who would be able to 

 give talks on bees before the farmers ; that 

 the State had already eight si)eakers who 

 took up the general subject of bee culture at 

 the institutes. So far as the Division of 

 Farmers' Institutes of Pennsylvania was 

 concerned, it was glad to join with the >Ja- 

 tional Bee-keepers' Association and the State 

 Bee-keepers' Association in making bee cul- 

 ture more prominent than ever. 



BEES AND HORTICULTURE. 



This subject was handled by Prof. H. A. 

 Surface in a most admirable manner. In- 

 stead of taking up the old hackneyed line of 

 discussion as to whether bees benefited the 

 orchardist in helping to pollenate the blos- 

 soms of the fruit, trees, he preferred to take 

 up an entirely different line of thought; but 

 before doing so he took occasion to state 

 that the fniit-men generally agreed that the 

 bees performed a very valuable service in 

 pollenating their trees in the spring of the 

 year, and that many of them now were in- 

 viting bee-keepers to plant a few hives in 

 their orchards. But the line of discussion 

 that he would take up he put under three 

 heads — 1. 'The relation of bees to the ripe 

 fruit;" 3. "Do bees scatter the pear-blight 

 among the pear-orchards? "3 " Does spray- 

 ing the trees kill bees? " Under point No. 1 

 he had conducted a number of experiments, 

 among which was putting a plate of plums 

 on top of a strong colony; two of the plums 

 were sound, but soft and ripe; two slightly 

 puncturtni, and two partly rotted. After 

 two months' time he took the fruit off the 

 hive and brought it into the convention 

 room. An examination showed that the 

 rotted anil broken fruit had been eaten by 

 the bees to an extent that the soft pulpy 

 portion had been ccmsiderably reduced. The 

 sound fruit showed no injury whatever, and 

 simply dried. He gave this as an instance 

 to show that, if bees could have cut through 

 the skin of the sound fruit they would have 

 done so, as they had in the case of the part- 

 ly rotted ami broken fruit. In addition, he 

 could see no evidence that bees had ever 

 punctured the fruit on the trees, although 

 we must admit, he said, that fruit cut or 

 broken by insects or biids would be visited 

 by the bees, anci sometimes to an extent that 

 vvould cause complaint on the part of the 

 orchardist. 



Point No 2 "Do bees carry pear-blight?" 

 He thought they might do so, but he was 

 certain that there were other agencies that 

 would scatter the blight, it was his opinion 

 that, if all the bees were removed from the 



vicinity of the orchard, the blight would 

 continue as before. 



Third point, "Does spraying kill the bees?" 

 He thought altogether too much ado had 

 been made about this alleged destruction. 

 In the first place, the intelligent and up-to- 

 date orchardist does not now spray (because 

 he knows better) during the time that trees 

 are in bloom. He went on to show that, 

 while they were in full flower, the spraying 

 mixtures were very destructive to the blos- 

 soms. In the second place, many of them 

 were entirely harmless to the bees, and, even 

 if they were applied during the blooming 

 time, no harm could come. He admitted, 

 however, that certain of the arsenical poi- 

 sons would kill the bees; but as these were 

 not applied during blooming time they would 

 do no damage. Lime-sulphur wash, which 

 is now used to a very great extent in the 

 treatment of the San Jos6 scale, would not 

 kill bees. This liquid he had repeatedly 

 sprayed upon the hives and bushes near 

 them, but in no case were any bees killed. 

 IJut where the fluid was thrown directly on 

 to the bees it might and probably would de- 

 stroy them. 



At the close of this excellent address Mr. 

 Hershiser wished to put Professor Surface 

 more strongly on record. As the report 

 was being taken down in shorthand, and 

 would be quoted largely, he wished to know 

 what Professor Surface had to say about the 

 bees as pollenators of orchards Professor 

 Sui'face thought there could be no question 

 on that point. They were of immense ben- 

 efit to the fruit-men While they were not 

 valuable alike to all kinds of fruit, there 

 were certain kinds where they performed a 

 very essential service. 



Mr. Holtermann then brought out the 

 point that large numbers of bees were often 

 killed because they would appropriate the 

 poisonous spraving-iiquids, even when the 

 trees were sprayed out of bloom. He gave 

 as a reason f(jr this that many bee-keepers 

 were short-sighted enough not to place in 

 the bee-yard plenty of water where bees 

 could easily get it without going any great 

 distance. Professor Surface admitted that, 

 where they did not have enough water to 

 carry on brood-rearing, there might be some 

 losses in this way. 



In the general discussion that followed, it 

 was very clearly shown that bees need a 

 great deal of water, and, further, it is not 

 sufficient that they can get water half a mile 

 or a mile away —they ought to have it close 

 to the hives; and it should be there continu- 

 ously while the bees can Qy, as, whenever 

 short of water, they will always go to these 

 watering places. 



Some (me asked if a running stream pass- 

 ing through the apiary would be sufficient. 

 Mr. Holtermann replied that it ought to be 

 still water, and even went so far as to say it 

 shcmld be >tagn;int; but to this several de- 

 murred. Some even went so far as to place 

 warm water where the bees could get to it, 

 espe iaily in the colder weather, 

 in referring to the value of bees as pollen- 



