a nitrogenous food. This comes almost 
entirely from the pollen of flowers. 
Without this pollen, brood rearing, 
and that means bee raising, cannot 
progress successfully as there is no 
practical substitute that will take its 
place. Old bees die off very rapidly 
and unless there is a constant accession 
of young bees the colony will soon go 
out of existence. Fruit trees must have 
the help of bees or other insects in or¬ 
der to bring about cross-pollination. 
Bees, on the other hand, must have the 
pollen that these very trees will fur¬ 
nish them. There is unmistakable evi¬ 
dence that bees increase the fruit crop; 
and it is for this reason that there is a 
very intimate and necessary relation¬ 
ship between the fruit grower and bee¬ 
keeper, as shown later. 
It will now be in order to take up 
the questions propounded in the intro¬ 
duction in their numerical order. 
No. 1. —The Value of Bees, or How and 
Why Bees Increase the Fruit Crop 
What is the evidence to show that 
bees do actually increase the quality 
and quantity of fruit, particularly of 
apples, pears, plums, cherries, and the 
like? If one will critically examine the 
structure of the honeybee and the 
structure of the fruit blossom he will 
discover at once that the one helps the 
other. The correlation between the 
two is as striking as it is wonderful. 
The bees on the one hand are highly 
specialized with pollen gathering ap¬ 
paratus in the form of fuzz or hair, all 
over their bodies, of serrated hairs on 
the legs, and of pollen carrying appa¬ 
ratus on their hind legs. On the other 
hand, It is apparent that the flowers of 
[ 4 ] 
