Show A owl th mr U Col colonies onles of honey makers necessary to fruit raising because they are the chief fertilizing agent and there can be nothing no th ing more inore tempting temp ting than hot biscuit and honey for breakfast on a crisp winter morning by ROBERT h MOULTON in this country are just coming to realize the debt which they owe to the I 1 honey bee it lias has long been understood of of course that this busy little insect fertilizes the blossoms of apple and other buhei fruit trees and so helps to increase the crop yet the bee has seldom been credited with doing so much good asis as la actually the case indeed in times P past ast some fr fruit alt growers have sought to get rid of the bees on the ground brouna th that a f they damage the ripe fruit the crop so quickly decreased in size however that the fruit men were glad enough to have the bees back again there Is a welles well es belief that bees puncture grapes in order to extract the sweet J juice ulce but the fallacy of this belief has been proved beyond a doubt ripe fruit has been placed inside a beehive with thousands of the insects present but it has not been molested it Is true that if hornets or birds make holes ln in gF grapes apes pearlor pears pear sor or other ripe fruit the bees will feed on the juice which is is exuded in point of fact the jaws of the honey bee are so made that it would be unable to bite into or otherwise make bries holes in fruit even if i it had a will to do go BO orchards in which bees are present in large numbers are are almost always much more productive than those in which only a few bees are to bp be found land many apple growers growe r 5 are now establishing tab lishing apiaries in or near their orchards afis it Is not necessary to have the hives actually under the trees and it may be better to have them in an adjoining field it if the orchard Is tobe cultivated as otherwise the hives might be in the way and the horses stung bees seem to have an instinctive dislike for horses and will even attack the beekeeper sometimes it if he starts to work ln in the bee yard when the 0 odor dor of hor horses se S Is upon clothing beekeeping Is not to be recommended to hostlers hustlers host lers to the the boncy honeyann hone yand and wax war which he gets from his bees are merely products byproducts by an extra yield in fruit Is what he Is after and he gets it as may be judged from an instance cited by one of the state experiment stations jt it seems that two orchards situated in the same part of the country were cultivated in exactly the same mahner manner and had the same kinds of trees yet one was prolific and the other a failure when the experiment station was appealed to the trouble was diagnosed as a lack of bees to pollinate th the e lowers flowers you are arc wrong the answer anaw er was ft as flashed back for there are no bees in either orchard the inspector was not convinced however and after afdera a search he found a very strong colony of bees in a fallen log in one corner come of thel the bearing orchard bees were immediately installed in the other orchard by the owner and as a result he netted nearly the next season pretty good interest on an investment of 0 15 or 20 in bees most people do not know that an apple blossom requires to be fertilized several times in order to produce the best fruit but this Is a tact fact moreover the blossoms of some trees must be zed from another source if fruit Is to be set the work Is done largely by honey bees although wild beeb bee and other insects help out to some extent once as a test case 2588 2586 apple blossoms were covered in order to keep the bees away and only three apples matured of course the bee does not the blossoms purposely she Is in search I 1 W alve to be feasible lit it has to bo be done in greenhouses where strawberries are grown for when bees aret are used the fruit ts is always misshapen but the winter strawberries sell for or a dollar or two a i i perhaps it maybe said without getting a anybody r into trouble I 1 that the free use of water by spraying makes possible some of the remarkable exhibitions hibit ions which bees occasionally give water Is not always used by any means butchen but when fils ills the bees are arc rendered surprisingly tractable and doclie docile there are no bee ta tamers inerS however who are not stung at times Ind indeed iced they may be stung very often but they are inured to the experience find and do not even wince mince and andoe of course an experienced beekeeper learns how to handle bees without making them angry anar y furthermore some bees are much gentler than many times it Is a go god ad plan to kill the queen in a cross colony and replace her with a young queen from a quiet colony yet the cross bees are likely to 0 be among the best honey producers in the apiary many farmers fall fait to succeed with bees simply because they neglect to learn anything about their management manage mout it I 1 Is true that bees to do not require a 0 great amount of attention and ami do bes best i when left alone roost most of the time yet there are certain things which have to be done just a at i the right time thyle and in just juat the r right ight way these are the few things that the farmer sh should ouia know about in early eaily spring for example the bes bees may e easily atly star starve veto to death f for or lack of stores although they may have come through the winter safely in that event they must be fed on sugar it if no honey Is available B equal am amounts of sugar and water may be used and it Is best to have the water gatei wormed warmed but the sugar should never be melted on th the p stove as it Is likely to be burned burne d the may be given in one of several different kinds of feeders but few are better than a shallow pan from the ten cent store with a little excelsior in it tor for the bees to walk on if this pan tilled filled with Is placed on top of the frames of the hives the bees will quickly take the liquid down and be tided over the period of famine it Is a mistake tor for any R farmer to try to keep bees in the old fashioned box lives hives for they cannot be managed so well a and nd 9 getting etting the honey out Is likely to be a as well as exciting process likewise thousands of bee beear are need needlessly lessly sacrificed and the hives are almost sure to 14 be neglected modern hives cost but little yet may be taken entirely to pieces and looked over without the bees as 4 amar al ym Y and the loss of a single one of nectar from which to make honey but all unconsciously she brushes the pollen from one flower and carries it along to another thus carrying on her hei part of natures plan the value derived from the cross fertilization of 0 blossoms la in this way is probably much greater than that of all the honey and wax made by the sum total of all the bees in the country it is practically impossible to grow cucumbers in the greenhouse unless bees are depended upon to feril fertilize lize the blossoms and sd so the market gardeners are obliged to yield tribute to this useful inject t even in the dead of winter with snow drifts six feet high outside thousands of bees are tobe to be found frytag around inthe in the great glass houses t where cucumbers ers are produced tor for the exclusive winter trade it Is true that the bees get butlin but little nectar from the blossoms and have to be fed on sugar but but they accomplish the purpose of transferring pollen from one flower to another of course this work might be done artificially that Is a man might go from one blossom to another with a small brush and transfer the pollen but the process would be tedious and too eapen I 1 taking honey out Is no trouble at all a escape Is used for the bees do n not ot even know what Is going on the best way to begin beekeeping Is to buy a colony or two from some up to date apiarist in the neighborhood but a hive full of bees can be shipped by express or the insects may be bought by the pound if one already has an empty hive indeed this Is a practice which Is becoming very common for even experienced beekeepers bee keepers often invest in one two or three pound packages of bees in norderto order to build up weak colonies it Is not an unusual thing tor for bees to be shipped all the way from texas to canada sometimes wild bees may be captured in the woods and brought home although called wild bees these honey makers which are fo found in logs and hollow trees have escaped from captivity at some time for there were no honeybees in this country until they were brought brou glit here by the pilgrim fathers if the former farmer owns more than halt half a dozen colonies of bees it will pay him to get an extractor this Is a simple device for separating the honey from the combs the latter being placed in a frame which revolves at a high rate of speed the liquid honey being thrown out of the wax cells by centrifugal force just as cream Is separated from milk then the combs may be put back in the hives for the bees to fill again the farmer fanner can usually get more honey this way and will have less swarming |