69 



ous mixtures while in blossom is not only injurious to the blossoms them- 

 selves by destroying the pollen, but also poisons the bees which visit them, 

 thus defeating the object every orchardist should keep in view— the cross- 

 fertihsation of the blossoms. In a number of the American States there 

 are laws against doing so. 



DO BEES INJURE FRUIT ? 



Fortunately, the ignorant prejudice against bees common some year» 

 ago amongst viticulturists and other fruit-growers is fast dying out. It 

 was beheved at one time in America that bees punctured and destroyed 

 grapes and other delicate fruits, and, notwithstanding that the results of 

 exhaustive experiments conclusively proved the contrary, it took a long 

 time to convince them they were wrong. Bees cannot puncture sound 

 grapes, but during a dearth of honey they will suck the juice from ripe grapes 

 and other fruits after they have been punctured by some other animal, or 

 have burst through overripeness. Sound grapes smeared with honey have 

 been put into a hive containing a starving colony of bees : the honey has 

 quickly vanished, but not a grape has been injured. Bunches of sound 

 grapes have been left in four or five hives at a time, directly in contact 

 with the bees, and after three weeks every grape was perfectly intact, but 

 glued to the combs. (See " Langstroth on the Honey-bee," page 507.) 



CONCLUSION. 



Enough, I think, has been said to convince orohardists, if it were 

 needed, that it is vital to their interests either to keep bees or to see that 

 there are plenty in the neighbourhood of their orchards. It remains only 

 for me to say to those who wish to follow up their investigations on this 

 subject, I would recommend them to read the works of Darwin, Muller, 

 Lord Avebury (Sir John Lubbock), and Cheshire. 



I would point out that in New Zealand we have not the number of fertiUs- 

 ing insects there are in Europe or America, consequently we are even more 

 dependent on the hive-bees than are orchardists in those quarters of the globe. 

 I think I am coireot in saying there are piactioally no other insects but the 

 hive-bees about in Now Zealand when fruit-trees are in blossom. Finally, 

 as a summary, I will quote the conclusions of Herman Muller on the com- 

 parative value of bees as fertilisers. He says in his great work on " The 

 FertiKsation of Flowers," — 



Bees, which not only feed on the produce of flowers, but nourish their 

 young also thereon, are in such intimate and lifelong relations with flowers 

 that they show more adaptation to a floral diet, and arc more important 

 for tho fertilisation of our flowers, and have therefore led to more adaptive 

 modifications in these flowers, than all the foregoing orders (of insects) put 



