The Sources of Nectar and Pollen 
367 
but the honeybees hurry back and forth from the hive, mak¬ 
ing repeated visits and cross-fertilizing innumerable blossoms, 
in their efforts to increase the colony stores. The honey 
obtained from fruit blossoms is usually small in quantity 
and serves only to stimulate brood-rearing, but in getting 
it the bees benefit the fruit-grower to an extent which can 
scarcely be over-estimated. One peculiarity of behavior 
is worthy of special mention in this connection. Honey¬ 
bees rarely go from one species of flower (p. 119) to another 
(unless the flowers are virtually identical) while on one trip 
from the hive. There is also evidence worthy of belief 
that an individual honeybee confines its visits to one species 
of plant, sometimes for several days. For example, a bee 
will not be seen flying from an apple blossom to a dandelion 
flower growing beneath the tree and then perhaps back to 
an apple blossom. Consequently, on visiting an apple 
blossom it does not present dandelion pollen or, in fact, any 
pollen other than that from the apple and, by virtue of this 
constancy, the benefits of the visits of honeybees are increased 
many fold. 
In view of these facts, it is not difficult to believe that in 
many orchards over half of the fruit set is to be attributed 
to the visits of the honeybees. Were this estimate reduced 
to ten per cent, which even an avowed enemy of the bee 
would consider too low, it appears that the fruit-growers 
receive more actual financial benefit from the presence of 
bees in the average farming community than do the beekeep¬ 
ers who own them. It therefore appears quite obvious 
that it is to the interest of fruit-growers to encourage bee¬ 
keeping in every way in their immediate localities. 
Damaging effects of incorrect spraying. 
Since the spraying of fruit trees while in bloom is highly 
injurious, not only to honeybees but to all of the insect 
visitors, it is evident that such spraying is to that extent 
detrimental to the interests of the fruit-grower himself. 
Since spraying in full bloom is not necessary to control the 
