2 BEEKEEPING 



vinced long enough to go over to Johnnie 

 McCoy's and buy himself a colony or two. 

 That is, if he does not tell "the old wo- 

 man" about it and let her talk him out of 

 the notion. 



As a matter of fact, fruit growers 

 should be more interested in beekeeping 

 than are professional beekeepers. In the 

 long run bees are worth more to the fruit 

 industry than they are to the producers 

 of honey, though many growers are just 

 as skeptical of this fact as was Mickey 

 when I began to talk with him about the 

 advisability of keeping a bee himself. 

 Most of them know that many kinds of 

 flowers are pollenated by insects and that 

 certain fruits are sterile unless fertilized 

 with pollen from a different variety, but 

 they seldom consider that honey-bees are 

 of any very great assistance in this im- 

 portant work. 



If every bee in the United States would 

 be killed to-day, the loss in next year's 

 fruit crop would amount to as much or 



