^■:«{^;' 



70 



SEVENTH ANNUAL. REPORT OF THE 



than, for example, the subject of the 

 bee-sting cure for rheumatism. This 

 touches bee-keepers and horticultural - 

 ists. I shall not go into the well 

 known details of the relationship of 

 the bee to the fruit grower in being a 

 necessary feature to carry pollen from 

 flower to flower. This is already too 

 well known and would be entirely too 

 elementary for me to discuss at pres- 

 ent. Neither shall I discuss the beau- 

 tiful adaptations and structure of the 

 bee for carrying pollen, and the neces- 

 sity of pollen for fruit, and so forth. 

 But I do wish to take up three points. 

 The first is the relationship of the bee 

 to the mature or ripening fruit. We, 

 as bee-keepers, know that we are often 

 accused of harboring pests which are 

 injurious to the fruits of our neigh- 

 bors by puncturing and sucking their 

 juices and ruining them. Last summer 

 over in Camphill, when I lived there, a 

 neighbor came and said: "Your bees 

 are puncturing my grapes and sucking 

 them dry." I had an assistant ex- 

 amine, and he found wherever the 

 grapeskins were already punctured the 

 bees were at work, but he found no 

 cases where the bees were doing the 

 puncturing or were working upon them 

 themselves. "Where they had been cut 

 by the yellow jacket or by the skin 

 breaking by rot spreading the bees 

 were at work. 



I placed several bunches of grapes 

 in a hive, some of them punctured and 

 some I left entire. I found the grapes 

 punctured by even a single pin hole 

 were sucked dry by the bees. Those 

 grapes left entire were not injured. 

 This last summer I repeafted the ex- 

 periment with plums. I put the plums 

 in an old pan. I set that pan in the top 

 of the bee hives and this very morning 

 I took that pan out — I myself did not 

 see it until this morning. Last summer 

 I took those plums from a tree; two of 

 them I punctured with pin holes, and 

 two of them I left entire without punc- 

 turing and two of them were com- 

 mencing to rot: and for the sake of 

 seeing the results of placing plums, of 

 which the skin was broken, where the 

 bees could get at them, I put the rot- 

 ting plums in as well. Now, you see 

 what was done. The two plums of 

 which the skin was broken are prac- 

 tically eaten out and sucked out until 

 they are shriveled. The two plums 

 of which the skm was riot broken are 

 simply dried like prunes, and the bees 

 never got at their pulp or substance at 



all. The two plums that were com- 

 mencing to rot continued the process of 

 decay. These two plums in the middle 

 were not punctured, and you see how 

 perfect they are, the skin is not broken. 

 The others were the same sized plums, 

 the same thing in every regard, only 

 I stuck the pin holes in them. There, 

 it appears to me. is an object lesson. 

 Those plums were put in the hive 

 nearly two months ago, because they 

 were put in there about the 1st of Au- 

 gust. 



You see, then, for point number one 

 the evidence that the bee does not 

 itself puncture fruit, but after the hole 

 is made it imay of course eat out and 

 suck out the pulp of that fruit. 



Point number two I cannot illustrate 

 ;by specimens with me, but I shall 

 bring specimens tomorrow. The bee 

 has been accused of being detrimental 

 to horticulture, in carrying the germs 

 of pear-blight. Now, pear-lblight is the 

 most destructive enemy of the pear 

 tree in this state without any excep- 

 tion; it is worse than the San Jose 

 Scale. I would rather have a dozen 

 trees with San Jose Scale than one 

 with pear-iblight stEirted in it. If the 

 honey bee be the sole agent of carry- 

 ing pear-blight then the horticultural- 

 ists are justified in condemning the 

 bees. If there are other agents, then 

 they are not justified in condemning 

 the honey bee alone. 



To demonstrate this principle, a few 

 fruit growers have objected to the 

 presence of the robin in their orchards 

 because it carries the San Jose Scale 

 upon its feet. If the robin were the 

 only means of carrying that they 

 would be justified in condemning and 

 destroying the robin; but that pest is 

 carried by no less than a dozen other 

 agencies, the chief of which is the 

 English sparrow. If every robin in our 

 state were destroyed the San Jose 

 Scale would spread practically as rap- 

 idly 'as though it was not condemned 

 for that purpose. If the robin were the 

 only means of spreading that pest leg- 

 islation against the robin would be a 

 good thing. If the honey bee be the 

 only means of spreading pear-blight 

 as it goes from the infected blossom 

 to the non- infected blossom then the 

 pear growers would be justified in 

 fighting against the presence of the 

 honey bee. 



I speak again from personal experi- 

 ence. This spring in the early part of 

 May I planted a numtoer of pear trees 



