2 BULLETU^- 685^ IT. S. DEPAETMENT OF AGEICULTURE. 
full seed or fruit production of a number of forages and grains, 
berries, and vining plants such as the squash and its rela- 
tives, not to mention many ornamental plants and trees. 
Many other varieties of bees than the honey producing kind 
and a multitude of other insects assist in the work of trans- 
ferring pollen from plant to plant, but the honeybee is 
probably the most important single agent, certainly so in 
the case of fruit trees. 
MAP INDICATING DISTRIBUTION OF BEES. 
The map printed herewith, showing the distribution 
of bees in the United States according to the 1910 
census, indicates within reasonable hmits where bees are 
most numerous, but some features require a brief explana- 
tion. The map shows only bees owned and reported by 
farmers, omitting the great number of colonies kept in towns 
or in outapiaries by professional beekeepers, thus making a 
relatively heavy showing in the more purely rural portions 
of the country. 
The large number of bees indicated in the Southeastern 
States and particularly in the Appalachian section, while 
reflecting an undoubted fact, carries an impression stronger 
than the facts warrant, partially because the territory is 
predominantly rural, but more because in that region the 
colonies are, to a greater extent than elsewhere, kept in small 
boxes, kegs, and similar receptacles which limit the size of 
the colony and cause heavy swarming. This latter fact 
tended to further exaggeration because at the time the census 
was taken swarming was well advanced in the South though 
hardly begun in the North. 
The great importance of beekeeping in the sage and orange 
sections of southwestern Cahfornia, the alfalfa and sweet- 
clover sections of other Western States, the clover belt of 
the North Central and Northeastern States, in the cotton, 
horse-mint, and desert plant sections of Texas and in the 
belt of tupelo and mixed bloom of the coastal plains adjoin- 
ing the south Atlantic and Gulf coast, are aU readily ob- 
servable. 
The great development in certain regions subsequent to 
the census, as in the Imperial Valley of Cahfornia (the 
southeastern section of the State), in southern Idaho (Twin 
Falls region), and elsewhere, is, of course, not indicated. 
