PLEASUKABLE BEE-KEEPINa 



CHAPTEE I. 



BEES AND FLOWERS. 



No one who has watched the busy bee flitting from 

 flower to flower can fail to have beeu struck with 

 the idea that it has some special duty to perform 

 while gathering from the nectaries of flowers the 

 sweetness that is to be used as a food for itself and 

 for the mjTriads of other bees in the colony from 

 which it has flown. In the economy of nature it is 

 not too much to say that there is not a busier 

 insect, or one which is du-ectly as well as indirectly 

 of more value to the agriculturist. 



Bees and flowers are inseparable. Mowers are 

 fertilised almost wholly by wind and insect agency, 

 but by far the greater number require the \-isits of 

 insects for the proper fertihsation of bloom. Man's 

 efforts to improve nature by cross-fertihsation would 

 be of httle avail without the bee. That it was 



