298 AUSTRALASIAN 



rational principles, he should be able, upon reflection, to see 

 that such ideas were entirely groundless. Nevertheless the 

 complaint is sometimes made, in a more or less vague manner, 

 by persons who ought to know better ; and even bee-keepers 

 appear occasionally to adopt an apologetic tone, arguing that 

 " bees do more good than harm," instead of taking the much 

 higher and only true stand by asserting that bees, while con- 

 ferring great benefits on agriculture, do no harm whatever, and 

 that the presence of an apiary on or close to his land can be 

 nothing but an advantage to the agriculturist. 



BENEFICIAL INFLUENCE OF BEES ON AGRICULTURE. 



We have already, in Chapter III., dwelt upon the value of 

 the intervention of bees in the cross-fertilisation of plants, and 

 can here only refer the reader for further information to the 

 works of Sir J. Lubbock and of Darwin. The latter, in his 

 work on "Cross and Self-Fertilisation of Plants," gives the 

 strongest evidence as to the beneficial influence of bees upon 

 clover crops. At page 169, when speaking of the natural 

 order of leguminous plants to which the clovers belong, he 

 says, " The cross-seedlings have an enormous advantage over 

 the self fertilised ones, when grown together in close competi- 

 tion;" and in Chapter X., page 361, he gives the following 

 details of some experiments, which show the importance of the 

 part played by bees in the process of cross-fertilisation : — 



"Tri/olium repens (white clover). — Several plants were protected from 

 insects, and the seeds from ten flower-heads on these plants and from 

 ten heads on other plants growing outside the net (which I saw visited 

 by bees) were counted, and the seeds from the latter plants were very 

 nearly ten times as numerous as those from the protected plants. The 

 experiment was repeated in the following year, and twenty protected 

 heads now yielded only a single abortive seed, whilst twenty heads on 

 the plants outside the net (which I saw visited by bees) yielded 2,290 

 seeds, as calculated by weighing all the seed? and counting the number 

 in a weight of two grains. Tri/olium pratense (purple clover). — One 

 hundred flower-heads on plants protected by a net did not produce a 

 single seed, whilst one hundred on plants growing outside, which were 

 visited by bees, yielded sixty-eight grains weight of seeds ; and as 

 eighty seeds weighed two grains, the hundred heads must have yielded 

 2,720 seeds." 



Here we have satisfactory proof that the effect of cross- 

 fertilization, brought about by bees, upon the clovers and other 



