BEES AND FLOWERS. 13 



far from satisfactory, though years ago abundance of 

 fruit was gathered. The failure of the crops was 

 attributed by some to winds and rains, but the Messrs. 

 Bassford, of Cherry Glen, Vaca Valley, Solano County, 

 attributed it to the absence of bees, for they had re- 

 marked that when wild bees were plentiful in the 

 valley the crops were good. To test the matter they 

 placed several colonies of bees in their orchards in 

 1890. The result was striking ; their crop was good 

 while others were entire or partial failures. In 1891 

 they had sixty-five colonies of bees, and Mr. H. Bass- 

 ford, writing to the Entomologist, said, " Our crop was 

 good this season, and we attribute it to the bees. Since 

 we have been keeping bees our crop has been much 

 larger than formerly ; while those nearest us, five 

 miles away, where no bees are kept, have produced 

 hght crops." 



Mr. Cheshire, in " Bees and Bee-keeping," draws 

 attention very forcibly to the necessity for bees in the 

 fertihsation of apple bloom. " The apple," he says, 

 " as its blossom indicates, is strictly a fusion of five 

 fruits into one — hence called psetidosyncarpous — and 

 demands for its production in perfection no less than 

 five independent fertilisations. If none are effected, 

 the calyx, which reaUy forms the flesh of the fruit, 

 instead of swelling, dries and soon drops. An apple 

 often develops, however, though imperfectly, if four 

 only of the stigmas have been pollen dusted ; but 

 it rarely hangs long enough to ripen. The first severe 

 storm sends it to the pigs as a wind-faU. I had two 

 hundred apples, that had dropped during a gale, 

 gathered promiscuously for a lecture illustration; and 



