VI PEEFACE. 



nected with the apiary, and other matters important to 

 be known and understood by the Bee-keeper. 



I have also briefly touched upon the relation of api- 

 culture to horticulture and agriculture, in the hope that, 

 should this little work fall into the hands of those who 

 are engaged in the latter pursuits, more especially into 

 the hands of fruit-growers, the remarks which it contains 

 on this siibject may be of some substantial and practical 

 utility. In very fine seasons, when the springs are 

 bright, fine, and mild, fruit will doubtless set very well 

 without the intervention of bees — ^the wind, assisted by 

 the sunshine, being a sufficient agent for the distribution 

 of the pollen ; but in cold, wet seasons the aid of bees 

 is unquestionably essential to the fertilisation of the 

 bloom by carrying the pollen, not anywhere at hap- 

 hazard as the wind does, but from blossom to blossom, 

 and nowhere else. In wet and cold weather the pollen 

 is more inclined to adhere to the blossoms than in fine, 

 warm weather ; and thus it is that the wind fails in 

 unfavourable seasons to secure that which can then 

 be obtained only by the help of bees — viz., the proper 

 fertilisation of the fruit blossom, with the result of a 

 proportionately abundant crop of fruit. 



I would invite any persons who may be incredulous 

 on this point to visit, in a confessedly bad fruit year — 

 say during August or the early part of September — the 

 localities in which some of our large apiaries are situated. 

 Let them carefully view the country lying in a radius of, 

 say, two miles from the apiary itself ; and they will find 



