have come up from the earth. ThiivS a few insects may have gained ac- 

 cess to the flowers, as we note that the plants were covered for about 

 a month. 



We see that in every case the fruit was greatly lessened, if we except 

 the two cases of raspberries. In several cases, notably those of the 

 clovers, no fruit or seeds were secured in the covered specimens. The 

 strawberries seem less affected than any other of the plants, except the 

 two cases of the raspberries. This may be owing, as suggested above, 

 to the presence of insects that could come up from the earth beneath 

 the plants. Perhaps strawberries, when the blossoms contain both sta- 

 mens and pistils, are less dependent on insects than many other fruits. 

 The two cases of raspberries are curious. We can not explain them. 

 The fact is very apparent that fruit-growers are nearly or quite as much 

 interested in the presence of bees as are the bee-keepers. Pomologists 

 then may well join hands with tlie apiarists in demanding and securing 

 a law making it a grave misdemeanor to spray fruit trees while they 

 are in bloom. 



EXPERIMENTS IN BREEDING. 



That bees, like all other organisms, are greatly subject to variation is 

 known to every bee-keeper. That they can be greatly improved by 

 careful selection is equally well understood by all observant queen- 

 breeders. The mating habits of bees are such as to make experimenta- 

 tion in breeding difficult, but the obstacles are not unsurmountable. 

 We are working to overcome them and to develop a superior strain of 

 bees by judicious crossing and selection. This is slow work, and we 

 can hope for decided results only after a long period. 



Our stock is from Syrian and Carniolan, and^ as the former predomi- 

 nates, we have this season bred very largely from Carniolan. Several 

 of the most prolific queens are selected, and it is our purpose to use the 

 ones from these that winter the best the coming winter for breeding- 

 next season. We shall try to test the Punic bees and, if they show 

 superiority, introduce some of this blood. 



Besides the above, several other experiments of a miscellaneous char- 

 acter have been conducted which are of more or less interest. 



CONSUMPTION OF HONEY IN THK SECRETION OF WAX. 



This experiment ^as performed that we might determine how much 

 honey it requires to enable the bees to secrete 1 pound of wax. Three 

 colonies were taken, which we will designate as No. 1, No. 2, and No. 3, 

 the bees of which weighed 6 J, 8J, and 5J pounds, respectively. No. 1 

 was given a virgin queen and no comb or honey. No. 2 was given a 

 virgin queen and empty combs. No. 3 was given a laying queen and 

 empty combs. A vigorous colony on scales during the experiment 

 gained 4£ pounds. The bees did not fly from these hives as vigorously 

 as from hives not in the experiment. The feeding doubtless had some- 



