recompense the beekeeper without any 
compensation from the fruit grower. 
When bees are rented or purchased for 
the work of pollination, fruit growers 
should always stipulate that the colo¬ 
nies be strong. That means that every 
comb should be well covered with 
bees. It would be far better to have 
the colonies two story, with bees in 
both stories. If the work of pollina¬ 
tion is confined to just a few hours a 
strong colony will do much more ef¬ 
fective work than a weak one in the 
same given time. 
No. 5.—Buying Bees Rather 
than Renting 
In some cases it is advisable and 
certainly cheaper to buy the colonies 
outright. The fruit grower would then 
have to be a beekeeper or become one 
in order to give them intelligent care 
at the right time. With the literature 
now available on how to handle bees, 
this .should not be difficult, for it takes 
no more skill to take care of bees than 
it does to run an orchard. 
It is a very nice arrangement for a 
group of orchardists in a vicinity to 
buy bees, keep them permanently, and 
employ a competent beekeeper to look 
after the bees in all the orchards. In 
other cases the orchardist is such an 
extensive grower that he can afford to 
run the oees and his orchard both at 
the same time, and employ a compe¬ 
tent man the year around. When the 
bee man is not at work with the bees, 
he can do work in the fruit orchard, 
letting the bees shift for themselves 
during that time. This is being done 
very successfully in many cases. 
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