26 
BEE -CULTURE. 
Bees in Relation to Flowers 
and Fruit-Culture. 
By Isaac Hopkins, Apiarian, in Bulletin 
18 of N.Z. Department of Agriculture, 
Il. IN RELATION TO FRUIT 
CULTURE. 
(Continued from last issue.) 
— Spraying fFruit-Trees While in 
Blossom, — 
Ido not know that it is necessary , to 
say much on this subject, as I dare say 
our orchardists are well aware that spray- 
ing trees with the usual poisonous mix- 
tures while in blossom is not only 
injurious to the blossoms themselves by 
destroying the pollen, but also poisons 
the bees which visit them, thus defeating 
the object every orchardist should keep 
in view—the cross-fertilisation of the 
blossoms, In a number of the American 
States there are laws against doing so. 
— Do Bees Injure Fruit? — 
Fortunately, the ignorant prejudice 
against bees common some years ago 
amongst viticulturists and other fruit- 
growers is fast dying out. It was 
believed at one time in America that bees 
punctured and destroyed grapes and 
other delicate fruits, and, notwithstanding 
that the results of exhaustive experimenst 
conclusively proved the contrary, it took 
along time to convince them they were 
wrong. 
grapes, but during a dearth of honey they 
will suck the juice from ripe grapes and 
other fruits after they have been punc- 
tured by some other animal, or have 
burst through overripeness. Sound 
grapes smeared with honey have been 
put into a hive containing a starviug 
colony of bees : the honey has quickly 
vanished, but not a grape has been 
injured. Bunches of sound grapes have 
been left in four or five hives at a time, 
directly in contact with the bees and 
-after three weeks every grape was perfect- 
ly intact, but glued to the combs. 
Bees cannot puncture sound 
THE AUSTRALIAN GARDENER. 
— Conclusion, — 
I could go on quoting the opinions of 
mauy other able authorities in the same 
strain, but enough has been said to 
convince orchardists, if it were needed? 
that it is vital to their intereats either to 
keep bees or to see that there are plenty 
in the neighbourhood of their orchards 
It remains only for me to say to those 
who wish to follow up their investigations 
on this subject, I would recommend 
them to read the works of Darwin, 
Maller, Lord Iveagh (Sir John Lubbock), 
and Cheshire. 
I would point out that in New Zealand 
we have not the number of fertilising in- 
_ sects there are in Europe or America, 
consequently we are even more dependent 
on the hive hees than are orchardists in 
those quarters of the globe. I think I am 
correct in saying there are practically no 
other insects but the hive-bees about in 
New Zealand when fruit-trees are in 
blossom. Finally, as a summary, I will 
quote the conclusions of Herman Muller 
on the comparative value of bees as 
fertilisers. He says in his great work on 
“The Fertilisation of Flowers,”— 
Bees, which not only feed on the 
produce of flowers but nourish their 
young also thereou, are in such intimate 
and lifelong relations with ‘flowers that 
they show more adaptation toa floral diet, 
and are more important fertilisation of 
our flowers, and have therefore led to 
more adaptive modifiactions in~ these 
flowers than all the foregoing orders (of 
insects) put together. Bees, 
as the most skilful and diligent visitors, 
have played the chief evolution of flowers; 
we owe to them the most numerous, the 
most varied. and most specialised forms. 
Flowers adapted to bees probably surpass 
all others together in variety of colour. 
The most specialised, and especially the 
gregarious, bees have produced great 
differentiations in colour, which enable 
them on their journeys to keep to a single 
species of flower. While those flowers 
which are fitted for a miscellaneous lot of 
short-lipped insects usually exhibit 
similar colours (especially white or yellow) 
over a range of several allied species, 
the most closely allied species growing in 
the same locality, when adapted for bees, 
December 1, 1909 
are usually of different colours, and can 
thereby be recognised at a glance. 
THE END. 
The way to get rid of this fellow and 
all his kind us to spray the leaves 
they feed on with 
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