licc-hrf iiiiifi ill Victoria. 



125 



that you make inquiry concerning the kind of spray to us© while the 

 trees are in bloom. Again I hasten to say that you are decidedly 

 wrong. Please get it out of your head now and for ever, for your own 

 sake and that of your crop as well as for the bees, that no trees, shrubs, 

 bushes, or vines of any kind should ever be sprayed while in bloom." 



With the object of arriving at some definite conclusions as to in liow 

 far American experience applied to Victoria, observations were made in 

 the orchard of the Horticultural School at Burnley by Mr. E. E. Pescott, 

 the principal, in conjunction with the writer. The results of the first 

 season's observations were recorded in an article, " Bees and Spraying," 

 published in the Journal of Agriculture for January, 1912, from which 

 1 extract the following: — 



It is often considered that bees are able to collect a good store of 

 honey from fruit tree blossom , and that the yield of fruit tree honey 



A portion of the Burnley Apiary, showing hives under fruit trees. 



comes at a time when the bees urgently need it for brood-rearing. That 

 may be so in other countri&s, but it does not appear to be so in Aus- 

 tralia. Here, the nectar flow seems to be somewhat weak, and in- 

 sufficient in quantity for the necessities of the bees. A Victorian apiarist 

 during the past season removed his bee colonies from his home to a 

 district where the bees had an available range over 15,000 fruit trees. 

 He ultimately found that the bees were starving, and he had to remove 

 them to a more suitable locality. It may thus be found that the chief 

 use of bees in the orchard will be for cross-fertilization purposes. 



Whenever losses of bees occur in apiaries located in or near orchards 

 in which spraying is practised, the owners assume that the mortality 

 is due to the poisons used in the spraying mixtures. So far, there 

 appears to be no proof that bees gather poison along with nectar and 



