BEES AND FRUIT. 



matter, I now believe that nature never intend- 

 ed that vegetable productions, in their love- 

 embrace, should ever require tlie aid of a third 

 party, any more than the human family or 

 animals, and that nature has furnished every 

 living species or kind the power to reproduce 

 itself within itself. W. S. Fultz. 



Muscatine, la. 



[This is pretty well answered in an article 

 we published in 1891, Sept. 15, from the pen of 

 Prof. Cook. Our comment appears further on. 

 It is not our custom to reprint old articles; but 

 in this discussion many of our present readers 

 may not be able to refer to the back number 

 mentioned.] 



The producers of flower-seeds in our cities keep 

 bees in their greenhouses, as they find this the easi- 

 est and cheapest method to secure that more per- 

 fect fertilization upon which their profits depend. 

 Secretary Farnsworth, of the Ohio Horticultural 

 Society, could account for a very meager crop of 

 fruit a few years since, in his vicinity, after a pro- 

 fusion of bloom, only through lack of pollenization. 

 The bees had nearly all died off the previous winter. 

 I have often noted the fact, that, if we have rain 

 and cold all during the fruit- bloom, as we did in the 

 spring of 1890, even trees that bloom fully are al- 

 most sure to bear as sparingly. 



Darwin's researches considered insects as awhole, 

 and it is true that all insects that visit flowers, ei- 

 ther for neetar or pollen, do valuable service In this 

 work of pollenization. Thus many of the hymen- 

 optera, diptera, and coleoptera, and not a few lepi- 

 doptera, are our ever ready helpers as pollenizers. 

 Yet early in the season, in our northern latitudes, 

 most insects are scarce. The severe winters so thin 

 their numbers that we find purely one, whereas we 

 can find hundreds in late summer and early au- 

 tumn. In late summer the bumble-bees and paper- 

 making wasps number scores to each colony, while 

 in spring only one fertile female will be found. 

 This i-i less conspicuously true of solitary insects, 

 like most of our native bees, and wasps; yet even 

 these swarm in late summer, where they were soli- 

 tary or scattering in the iuirly spring. The honey- 

 Dees are a notable exception to this rule. They live 

 overwinter, so that even in early spring we may 

 find ten or flfleen thousand in a single colony, in 

 lieu of one solitary female, as seen in the nest of 

 bombus or vespa. By actual count in time of fruit- 

 bloom in May. 1 have found the bees twenty to one 

 of all other insects upon the flowers; and on cool 

 days, which are very common at this early season, I 

 have known hundreds of bees on the fruit-blossoms, 

 while I could not find a single other insect. Thus we 

 see that the honey-bees are exceedingly important 

 in the economy of vegetable growth and fruitage, 

 especially of all such plants as blossom early in the 

 season. We have all noticed how much more com- 

 mon our flowers are in autumn than in spring time. 

 In spring we hunt for claytonia, the trillium, and 

 the erythronium. In autumn we gather the asters 

 and goldenrods by the armful, and they look up 

 at us from every marsh, fence-corner, and com- 

 mon. In May our flowers demand a search, while in 

 California the fields of January and February are 

 one sea of blossoms. The mild California winters 

 do not kill the insects. There a profusion of bloom 



will recCivp service from these so-called " marriage- 

 priests," and a profusion of seed will greet the com- 

 ing spring time. Thus our climate acts upon the 

 insects, and the insects upon the flowers, and we 

 understand why our peculiar flora was developed. 

 Yet notwithstanding the admirable demonstrations 

 of tlie great master Darwin, and the observations 

 and practice of a few of our intelligent practical 

 men, yet the great mass of our farmers are either 

 ignorant or indifferent as to this matter, and so to 

 the important practical considerations which wait 

 upon it. This is very evident, as appears from the 

 fact that many legislators the past winter, when 

 called upon to protect the bees, urged that fruit- 

 growers had interests as well as the bee men. Dot 

 seeming to know that one of the greatest of these 

 interests rested with the very bees for which pro- 

 tection was asked. 



Now that we understand the significance of the 

 law of adaptation in reference to the progressive 

 development of species, we easily understand why 

 our introduced fruits that blossom early would find 

 a lack of- the "marriage-priests," and why it would 

 be a matter of necess ty to introduce the honey-bee, 

 which, like the fruits, are not indigenous to our 

 country, just as the bumble-bee must go with the 

 red clover, if the latter is to succeed at once in far- 

 off New Zealand. 



It is true, that we have native apples, cherries, 

 plums, etc. Bat these, like the early insects, were 

 scattering, not massed in large orchards, and very 

 liKely the fruitage of these, before the introduction 

 of the honey-bee, may have been scant and meager. 



Now that spraying our fruit-trees with the arsen- 

 ates, early in the spring, is known to be so profitable, 

 and is coming and will continue to come more gen- 

 erally into use, and as such spraying is fatal to the 

 trees if performed during the time of bloom, and 

 not only fatal to the imago, but to the brood to 

 which it is fed in the hive, it becomes a question, of 

 momentous importance that all should know that 

 bees are valuable to the fruit-grower and the api- 

 arist alike, and that the pomologist ^ho poisons the 

 bees is surely killing the goose that laid the golden 

 egg. That bees are easily poisoned by applying 

 spray to trees that bear nectar-secreting blossoms, 

 at the time of bloom, can be easily demonstrated by 

 any one in a very short period of time. It has been 

 demonstrated in a frightfully expensive manner in 

 several apiaries in various parts of the country. 

 Several bee keepers, whose all was invested in bees, 

 have lost all this property, all because some fruit- 

 growing neighbor either thoughtlessly or ignorantly 

 sprayed his fruit-trees while in bloom; and this in 

 the face of the fact that, for the best results, even 

 in the direction sought, the spraying should be de- 

 ferred until the blossoms fall. I have demonstrated 

 this fact, where the results were entirely in sight. 

 I have shut hees in a cage, and given them sweeten- 

 ed water, containing London purple in the propor- 

 tion of one pound to 200 gallons of water, and in 24 

 hours the bees were all dead; while other hees, in 

 precisely similar cages, and fed precisely the same 

 food, with the poison omitted, lived for many days. 



We thus see that it becomes very important that 

 pomologist and bee-keeper alike know the danger, 

 and also know the loss to both parties in case cau- 

 tion is not observed to avoid the danger and prob- 

 able loss. It is also important that, by definite ex- 

 perimentation, we may learn just how important 

 the bees are in the pollenization of plants. To de- 



