- 30 - 
From these observations it is quite evident that the size of 
the melon crop may be greatly influenced by the bees. Observations 
in Florida and elsewhere show that certain days are favorable for 
setting melons while a very poor set will occur on other days, due 
to weather conditions. If the favorable days are few and the supply 
of bees small, the yield may be small, 
It is therefore important_ that a good s et b e_obtained fr om the 
earl i er fl owers and to Insure th is an adequate supply o f be es s hould 
b e present . Thus, in certain areas at least, the earliness and size 
o f yield m ay be increased by keep i ng honey bees nea r the field durin g 
the flowering season . In large fields, the best results should be 
obtained by having a hive near the center of the field. 
S eed Crops 
Alfalfa 
Tysdal, H. M. 
1940. Is tripping necessary for seed setting in alfalfa? Amer. Soc . 
Agron. Jour. 32: 570-585. 
p. 582: One factor ... is the effect of constant visits of 
honey bees to the same flower. When the bees are extremely numerous 
the same flower may be visited a great many times, and in this way a 
higher percentage of flowers are tripped than shown in Table 10. 
Actual counts have shown honey bees to trip as much as 12% of the 
flowers of a given raceme during the course of two or three days. 
This would indicat9 i __th.at_hon 3.y b aes in abundan ce mig ht be .beneficial 
f or seed setting . It has also been observed that certain honey bees 
are much more apt to trip alfalfa flowers than others, thus indicating 
rather wide differences among individuals in the same species. Plants 
also differ in ease of tripping. 
Tysdal, H. M. , and Westover, H. L. 
1937. Alfalfa improvement. U. S. Dept . Agr. Yearbook 1937: 1122-1153. 
p. 1139: The_ abilit y of t he honey bee (Apis mellifera L.) to 
tr ip alfalfa f lowers is n ot so easily clarifi ed. Piper et ai. foun d. 
.that h oney b ees tr ipped only from 0.5 t o 4.7 p ercent of the flowers 
v isited a nd many visits to the flower wer e r equired b efore tripping 
r as effected. Dw y er . . ._of Australia, has found that h oney bees c ause 
a consi derable amount of tripp ing a nd has suggested the us e of h one y 
b ees i n cages in breed i ng w or k. Michigan wor ke rs have also foun d the 
h oney bee to be effect ive wh en con fined to s mall ar eas^ Helmbo ld . . . 
stat es t hat Ji onay be es co lle cting poll en cause tripp ing and att ributes 
more tripping to them than to bumblebees. 
