PLAIN TALKS 
ABOUT BEES. 
Fruit Work; Lazy Bees; 
Hive Population. 
T HIS past season 
vve have had a 
dozen to 15 colo¬ 
nies of bees on the 
farm. We knew what 
bee-keepers claim re¬ 
garding the value of 
hoes in working on the 
apple bloom, and we 
made careful observa¬ 
tion in order to test 
these claims. We are 
convinced that the bees 
greatly increased the 
number and quality of 
the apples. Recoming 
greatly interested in the 
work of these little 
creatures we have been 
asking about them— 
questions not usually 
answered in hooks. The 
following notes are 
made up from answers 
to questions asked of 
E. It. Root of Ohio: 
BEES AND FRUIT. 
—“I understand you 
have records of cases 
which absolutely prove 
the value of bees in the 
orchard.” 
“You possibly saw the 
mention of the experi¬ 
ment recorded in our 
journal, something I 
know absolutely about, 
because I was an eye 
witness to the whole 
thing. There was a 50- 
acre orchard about nine 
miles north of Medina 
that had not been 
yielding any fruit and 
such fruit as did come 
from it was of a poor 
wormy kind unfit for 
market. Some practical 
fruit growers got hold 
of it. Van Renseller 
and Southam, and se¬ 
cured a lease on it for 
five years with the op¬ 
tion of purchase at the 
end of the fifth year. 
They also asked for 50 
colonies of bees, which 
we were glad to supply. 
The first year they care¬ 
fully pruned the trees, 
sprayed them before 
and after blooming, and 
then took 1(5,000 bushels 
of perfect apples, sell 
lug them at an average 
price of 80 cents per 
bushel. In fact, they 
offered a prize to any¬ 
one who could find a 
•single apple on the 
ground under any of 
their trees or on the 
trees that was wormy.” 
IIOW MANY NEED¬ 
ED?—“How many bees 
does an apple orchard 
require?” 
“I have roughly esti¬ 
mated that it takes 
about u colony of bees 
to the acre. While a 
single colony in a good 
year, under favorable 
conditions, will take 
care of five times that 
number, yet there is so 
much of the early 
blooming time that oc¬ 
curs during bad weath¬ 
er that the bees have 
only a very limited op¬ 
portunity to get at the 
trees. It is, therefore, 
necessary to have a 
larger number of bees 
under those conditions.” 
DEPENDS ON THE 
QUEEN.—“Are all col¬ 
onies equally produc¬ 
tive or are some more 
industrious than others 
—as might be said of 
other animals?” 
“Some colonies are 
much more industrious 
than others. One col¬ 
ony will have a queen 
whose bees will produce 
200 or 300 pounds of 
surplus honey in a sea¬ 
son, while another col¬ 
ony right side of it will 
produce only 25 or 30 
pounds. The value of 
the colony rests primar¬ 
ily in the value of the 
queen. There is just as 
much difference be¬ 
tween colonies of bees 
as there is between hu¬ 
man beings, or, rather, 
I should say, the differ¬ 
ence is greater.” 
ABOUT LAZY BEES. 
—“And what about the 
busy bee? As a boy I 
was told to exert my¬ 
self as the bees were 
supposed to do, yet I 
always suspected some 
bees were industrial 
frauds or loafers. Are 
there not lazy bees in 
the We?” 
“It is also a fact that 
some bees in a hive are 
lazy, and all of them 
are lazy at times. After 
a bee has been out for¬ 
aging for perhaps two 
or three hours, gather¬ 
ing a load of nectar, it 
will very often go in¬ 
side the hive and de¬ 
posit its load and per- 
ONE OF THE LABORERS IN THE VINEYARD. Fig. 525. 
VOL. LXXIII. No. 4277. 
, OCTOBER 17, 1914. 
WEEKLY $1.00 PEK YEAR. 
