New York AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION, 371 
(4) Even if arsenical sprays at blooming time do kill bees, the 
value of the bee interests in the orchard counties is very small as 
compared with the value of the fruit interests. 
(5) It is not proven that bees are necessary for the fruitfulness 
of apples, at least of the varieties which are most grown. 
The first argument of the fruit-growers is yet to be proved, but 
no one who has been in these great apple orchards during the 
blooming season can fail to feel the weight of the second point. 
' A fruit-grower may set out to spray his twenty-acre apple 
orchard when the blossoms show pink, as directed in the spray 
calendars, but after a short “spell” of warm May weather he 
finds his trees in full bloom and only half of the orchard sprayed. 
Spring rains may prevent him from spraying till the blossoms 
are just ready to burst; then come two or three days of sunny 
weather, and his trees are in full bloom. Sea 
The third point—are bees killed by arsenical sprays at blos- 
soming time under normal orchard conditions ?—is also worthy 
a moment’s review. The fruit men are in such overwhelming 
majority in the apple sections that the bee men are not often 
heard. In order to approach this question from the bee-keeper’s 
point of view, three apiarists were visited and asked to give their 
experience and opinions on this much discussed subject. <A bee- 
keeper of Orangeport has his hives under an apple tree which 
he has sprayed with arsenites when in full bloom for three years. 
He has not noticed more than the usual number of dead bees by 
the hive at this season, and the colonies have apparently done 
just as well as in previous years. A bee-keeper of Gasport has 
had the same experience. Another at Medina, who has about 
forty colonies, sprayed his trees with the Kedzie (arsenic) 
mixture last year when they were in full bloom. There was no 
more than the normal mortality among his bees that year. All 
these men believe that few, if any, bees are killed, because poi- 
soned blossoms are distasteful to them, or else they have instinct 
enough to keep away. The feeling of these men on. the subject 
is said to be shared by other bee-keepers in Western New York; 
but there are many who are equally certain that their colonies 
