BEES. 



Apart from gathering and storing honey, the hive or 

 domestic bee {apis mellificd) plays an important part in the 

 economy of the farm and garden by fertilising the various 

 flora, without which process many seeds could not be 

 produced. Probably, very few persons are aware that 

 the blossom of the apple, for instance, requires no 

 less than five distinct fertilisations in order to produce a 

 per.'iectly-formed fruit, the failure of one or more of 

 which causes the apple to be formed with one or more sides, 

 as the case may be, only partly developed. The late Charles 

 Darwin placed the value of bees as fertilisers beyond doubt. 

 by the following experiment. 



He planted a certain number of seeds of red clover in each 

 of two boxes, one of which was covered with wire netting 

 fine enough to prevent the well-known humble bee from 

 having access to the flowers. With this exception, both lots 

 of seed were treated alike, and in the result the uncovered 

 one produced seeds in abundance, while the other did not 

 produce a single seed. Some years ago, the present writer 

 toojc a house close to a large market garden near Dublin, 

 and established his apiary there without attracting much at- 

 tention from his neighbours. About three years after, he 

 had a conversation with the proprietor of the garden, in the 

 course of which the latter said that of late years he had 

 remarked great numbers of bees working on the fruit blos- 

 soms in his garden, and as the crops of fruit were most 

 abundant, he thought the visits of the bees must have had 

 something to do with the increase. The seeming mystery 

 was explained to him, and he was strongly advised to get one 

 or two colonies of bees to render him independent of his 

 neighbour's apiary, but the fear of stings outweighed all 

 other considerations with him, and he elected to remain 

 beeless. 



Although the farmer should keep bees, if only for the 



