BEE-spoke-data/bees-v0 huggingface dataset:
As to its quality, the honey from fruit - blossons is among the very best. It is light in color, of good body, and in favor not unlike the beautiful aroma one enjoys when going through an orchard in full bloom. Such honey, if it could be gathered in subsequent quantities, would doubtless have an extensive demand : but it is very seldom that bees are able to get enough to store any in the supers or sections.
## 6.2. Preaming during bloom destructive to bees and heood.
Now that spraying with various poisonous liquids has come to be almost universal among fruit-growers, the question arises. "Shall such spraying be done during the time the trees are in bloom, or before and after?" If it is administered when the petals are out, bees are almost sure to be poisoned, much brood will be killed, and manytimes valuable queens are lost. About the fir t thing one notices during fruit-blooming time, if trees are sprayed while in
Figure 18. How a smoker and a hive-tool will enable one to learn the condition of the set of one glance.
bloon, is that a good deal of the brood dies, until the bee-keeper begins to wonder whether his hees have fuel brood, black brood, or pickled brood--unless the truth dawns upon him that they have been carrying in poisonous liquids from the trees that have just been sprayed. Experiment stations all over the United States have shown that it is quite useless--indeed, often decidedly harmful to the young fruit--to spray during the time the trees are in full bloom; and they have shown over and over again that just as good and better results can be secured by spraying both _before_ and _after_ blooming, when there is no danger of bees visiting the trees in quest of pollen and nectar. Some experiments that were conducted at the Cornell and Geneva experiment stations, New York, are particularly conclusive in showing that to spray in full bloom is decidedly injured on the blossoms themselves, to say nothing about the great damage done to the beekeeper. The poison as ordinarily used is very harmful to the growth and development of the pollen. Again, the delicate organs of the flowers (stamens and pistils) are either killed or injured. Some of the pollen in the experiments above mentioned was taken into the laboratory and mixed with a thin syrup of about the consistency of raw nectar, and to this was then added a quantity of the spraying-liquid of the strength that is ordinarily used on fruit-trees. In every case it was found the pollen failed to develop. In short, those in charge of these experiments gave anyamount of proof to the effect that, irrespective of any interests of the bee-keeper, the fruit-grower himself could not afford to spray during fruit-blooming time, because spraying-liquids that are sufficiently strong to kill insect pests are decidedally harmful to the delicate reproductive organs and to the pollen of the flowers themselves._
Some prominent fruit-growers who once were of the contrary opinion, and who sprayed during full bloom, have since found their mistake to their sorrow. In some instances they confessed to losing nearly one thousand dollars.
some spraying-fluids are not poisonous. Take, for example, the lime-sulphur washes, the kerosene, and other emulsions of crude oil; but even these should not be sprayed when the trees are in bloom. Hellebore, or any of the Bordeaux mixtures, especially if they contain Paris green, or any of the arsenits, will be poisonous, of course : such fluids are too strong for the delicate pistils and stames of the flower.
Spraying is practiced to kill the fungi and injurious insects. The coding moth that is responsible in the ma'in for wormy apples lays its egg in the bark of the trees. As soon as the larva hatehes, it seeks out the blossons about the time the petals fall and begins to borrow into them. If they have a coating of poison it dies before it can do any mischief. Otherwise it makes its temporary home in the maturing fruit.
THE statement of a hipot authority in fruit culture.
"The American Apple-crowend" is the title of a book by F. A. Waugh, published by the Orange Judd Co., of New York. It contains over 200 pages of interesting and valuable matter. Price $1,00.
Those fruit-growers in the vicinity of our bee-keeping friends, who insist on spraying at the wrong time in spite of the advice of experiment stations all over the United States, and up-to-date fruit-growers, should be shown a copy of this work. If they are so behind the times as to spray while the trees are in bloom they have a lot to learn, and it would be dollars and dollars in their pocket to purchase a copy of this work and read it carefully. We are not sure but that bee-keepers can afford to buy it and loan it out to their fruit-growing neighbors. We copy a portion of chapter 11, entitled "The Insect Campaign." Under the head of "'Coding moth," the worm that so often turns one's stomach as he bites into an apparently sound apple he says :
This is one of the best known and most widely distributed enemies of the apple. Newly settled districts have nearly always enjoyed a temporary immunity from this pest, but experience has shown that the moth can not long be kept out of any commercial apple-growing district. Apparently the ravanes of the colling moth are more serious in central and southern latitudes, where two or three, or even as many as four, broods are hatched in a year. However, the campaign against this insect is an annual one, and has to be fought in practicality all the commercial orchards in the country.
The principal preventive of damage is the spray-pump, using poison sprays. Paris green is largely used at the present time, but is being generally equivalent by lead arsenate. Thorough spraysing at the right time with these insecticides will very greatly reduce the percentage of damage. Indeed, in many cases the work of the insect is particularly eliminated. As in dealing with every other insect or funous pest, thorough spraysing at the proper time is highly essential. The proper time in this case is within one week to ten days after the falling of the blossons. \(\Lambda\) longer delays can not be made with safety. After about 10 days the calyx, or blosson leaves of the young apple, close and the angle turns to a pendant position. Before this time the newly set fruit stands erect with the calyx lobes open. A poison spray properly distributed falls into this easy coup and the poison lodes there. As many of the young larvae enter the apple by eating in at this blosson end they secure with their first meal a taste of poison which usually prevents any further apple-acting on their part.
_Special attention should be settled to the fact that apple-trees should not be sprayed while in blosson, stopping in this time is not always totally without time, but in many instances it is not quite unnecessary, but even highly dangerous to the crop. Under all circumstances it is even likely to poison the bees working on the apple-housans. This sort of changes in foreveing in many cases; and as the free is one of the fruit-growers' best friends are even not affilled to murder include sworms in this way._
This early spraysing, just after the blossons fall, with not usually catch quite all the sedding moth, even all the first brood. When the second or third brood hatehes later in the year a still smaller percentage can be poisoned by the arsenal sprays. Nevertheless it pays to give additional sprays for this purpose in case the second and third breeds appear to be large.
Note the special paragraph in italics, which are ours.
The average manufacturer of spraying-outfits usually gives directions for making the spraying liquids : and so far as we know there is only one who advocates spraying when the trees are in bloom. We respectively suggest that our readers investigate very carefully, and be sure that they do not buy from parties who give such advice. We do not usually advocate the boycott, but we do think in this case that it is entirely proper to-buy of the other man.
In a number of States, laws have been enucted making it a misdemeanor to spray during blooming-time : but there are many ignorant fruit-growers\(-\)stubborn as well-who persist in administering the poison
the uncovered blossoms set their fruit. The strawberries were covered May 18th, and uncovered June 1th. The number of blossoms in each experiment varied from 60 in the least to 312 in the greatest. In these cases, a box covered with cheesceloth surrounded the plants. The plants were examinedJune 2d. Eleven per cent of the covered blossoms, and 17 per cent of the uncovered had developed. To show the details, in one case 60 blossoms were considered, 9 of which in the covered lot, and 27 in the uncovered, had developed. That is, three times as many flowers had set in the uncovered as in the covered. In another case of 212 blossoms, the fruit numbered 80 and 104. In a case of 123 blossoms, the number of fruit was 80 and 98. * * * * Our experiments with clovers were tried on both the white and alike. While the uncovered heads were full of seeds, the covered ones were entirely seedless. Plus fully explains the common experience of farmerswith these plants.
In the symposium referred to at the outset, the first article of the series was from J. C. Gillilani, who, in the summer of 1893, in a large field of medium red clover that came within 30 feet of his door, covered some blossoms with netting, and around others _not_ covered he tied a small thread. During the following August the gathered seed from the covered hossom, and also some from the plants not covered; and by careful counting he found that the latter gave 21 per cent more seed. His experiments were repeated again, with like results. As bubble-bees visited the field very profusely that year, it seems pretty evident that the larger amount of seed came as a result of cross-fertilization by bees. But this only shows what bubble-bees may do. When it comes to the ordinary _honey_-bees, the per cent in favor of uncovered blossoms as against the covered is very much larger. Witness, for instance, the extract from Prof. Cook's article just given.
Mr. J. F. McIntyre, a bee-keeper, and a delegate at the California State Fruit-growers' Association for 1883, reports that :county that has made great progress in the fruit-industry, gives this valuable testimony:
Hees and fruit go together. I can't raise fruit-without hees. Some of the other chunks say I'm a remark but I notice there is a pretty good following after me, heechants, and they keep a-count."
Yes, sir, e. 1 have hees all about my big endural. _Two years in succession I have put attention over some limits of trees; and, while they blossomed all right, any fruit; either on the same tree, where links were exposed to the old of hees, plenty of fruit._
Some three or four years ago, in the State of Michigan, a convention of fruit-growsers and bee-men assembled together for the purpose of discussing their common interests; and the fruit-men acknowledged generally that the keeping of hees in the vicinity of their overheads was an important factor in the production of fruit. At the various conventions of the Michigan State Beekeepers\({}^{
m ss}\)-Association, it has been shown quite conclusively by the bee-keepers who were fruit-growsers, that not only greater quantity but more perfect fruit is secured by having the bees in the vicinity of orchards.
Again, Chas, \(\Delta\), Green writes for the _Fruit Gencer_, published at Rochester, N, Y, on an article from which, for lack of space, we shall be able to quote only a couple of paragraphs:
1 has now become demonstrated that many kinds of fruits, if not all kinds are greatly benefited by the hees, and that a large portion of our fruit, such as the apple, pear, and particularly the plum, would be barren were it out for the helpful work of the honeybee. This discovery is largely owing to Prof. write, of the Agricultural Department at Washington, Prof. Waite covered the blossoms of years as apples, and plumes, with wetting, excluding the bees, and found that such protected blossoms of many varieties of apple and pear gibelts on fruit. In some varieties there was no exception to the rule, and he was convinced that large orchards of Bartlett bears, planted distant front other varieties, would be entirely known were it out for the work of the bees, and even then they could not be profitably grown unless every third or fourth row in the orchard was planted to Clapps. Fluorite, or some other variety that was capable of fertilizing the blossoms of the Bartlett. In other words, he found that the Bartlett pear could not move fertilize its own blossoms than the Crossent strawberry. We have already learned that certain kinds of plumes will not fertilize their own in blossoms, such as the Wild House, etc.
The fruit-growsers of the country are greatly indebted to Prof. Waite for the discovery he's long-mude. The lesson, that fruit-growsers must become interest in how,and they do doubt that within a few years it will be a rare thing to find a fruit-grower who does and keep hundreds, the prime object being to curplugh how in carrying public from one blossom to another in the fields of small fruits as well as for the large fruits.
Mr, F. A. Merritt, of Aubrow, la., testitles as follows:
Our apple-orchard is situated In such a way that it is exposed to both the north and south winds. About four years ago, as he trees on the south row (Cranseendentis, that throws out a heavy growth of foliage at the same time it blossm began to open its blossm, a heavy south wind previously for about five days. I noticed, during this period, that the bees could not touch the blown on the south side of these trees, but worked merify on the more sheltered limbs of the north side, what was the result? Those limbs on the north side were well loaded with fruit, while on the south side there was almost none to be seen. Does this prove that these trees depend on the aid of insects to fertilize the bloom? I leave it to the judgement of the reader.
Mr, G. M. Doolittle, in winding up his article for the symposium above referred to, says:
Again, I wish to note, as a matter of history, that, during the past season of 1860, very little, backheheast honey was secured from the backheast regions of the State of New York-as little that we have had, for the first time in my remembnemente, in backheast honey selling in our markets for nearly it not quite the same price as No. I closer honey, while usually sells for about two-thirds the price of eleven honey. And what has been the result? Why, the unleared thing of backheast grain bringing 3555,a bushele, on account of its scarcity, while the best of white wheat is selling at only 62 cts.! As a general thing, backheast brings from one-half to two-thirds the price of wheat. Third it now brings nearly one-fourth more than the best of wheat tells very largely, under the circumstances, on the side of the bee.
Mr, H. A. March, of Puget Sound, Wish,. one of the most extensive seed-growsers of the Pacific coast, testifies that he found less very valuable, and that seed was very much more abundant when bees were allowed to work on the flowers; and he says that stone fruits seemed almost incapable of self-fertilization, as he had fully proved by trying to grow peaches under glass.
The editor of the _Runl Xue-Yorker_ put in his paper, unsolieitted, this short pithy paragraph:
In those great greenhouses near location, where early encounters are grown, it is always necessary to have one or two lives of bees inside to fertilize the flowers. No bees, no encounters, unless seen so around with a brustl and dust the pollen from one flower to another.
Mr, J. F. Becker, of Morgausville, N. J., has eight greenhouses where he grows cumbers, and, attached to each one of them, with an entrance on the inside as well as outside, he has two colonies of bees. He found that, without them, he could not successfully fertilize the blossoms of the vines, and, consequently, could get no cucumbers. With them he is entirely successful in growing the quest of cucumbers for the early market, where he gets fancy prices. While the bees do their part of the work, many of them are lost in the attempt to find their way back to the hive. They dy against the glass, where, of course, they worry themselves to death. This makes it necessary to supply fresh colonies every now and then, but even this expense is made up many times over in the crop of encounters.
In the spring of 1892 the late Allen Principle, of Selby, Ont. one of the leading bee-keeps of Canada, testified that he was sum-tuned to appear before a legislative commitment of the House of Assembly of Ontario, to give evidence of the agency of bees in s.attering pollen. The Minister of Agriculture summmened not only the leading bee-
Footnote 1: In the spring of 1892 the late Allen Principle, of Selby, Ont. one of the leading bee-keeps of Canada, testified that he was sum-tuned to appear before a legislative commitment of the House of Assembly of Ontario, to give evidence of the agency of bees in s.attering pollen. The Minister of Agriculture summmened not only the leading bee-
Mr. Frank Benton, lately in the employment of the Department of Agriculture, Washington, D. C., in one of the Government Bulletins for 1894, page 234, commenting on the agency of bees in the fertilization of fruit-blossoms, says :
The facts they have brought forward are gradually becoming more widely known among fruit-growsers and herbivores, and additional evidence accumulates. A case illustrating very clearly the value of bees in an orchard has recently come to the notice of the writer, and its authenticity is confirmed by correspondence with the parties named, who are gentlemen of long and extensive experience in fruit-growsing, recognized in their locality as being authorities, particularly in regard to observers culture. The focus are these: For several years the cherry crops of Vaas Valley, in Solano Co., Cal., has not been good, although it was formerly quite sure. The partial or complete fallnow have continued to north winds, chilling rains, and similar climatic conditions but in the lands of Messs-Bassford, of cherry Gien, these causes did not sufficiently account for all the cases of failures.
These gentlemen resollected that formerly, when the cherry crops were gosl, wild bees were very plentiful in the valley, and hence thought perhaps the lack of fruit since most of the bees had disappeared might be due to imperfect distribution of the pollen of the blossoms. To testre the matter they placed, therefore, several hires of bees in their orchard in 1890. The result was striking, for the Bassford orchard were a good crop of chertlemen, while other growers in the valley who had no bees found their reps entire or partial fallners. This year 1891 Messs. Bassford had some sixty-five hits of bees in their orchard, and Mr. H. A. Bassford writes to the Entomologist. Our crop was good this season, and we attribute it to the lesser and he/ads further: "Since we have been keeping less our cherry crop has been much larger than formerly, while those orchards nearest us, so has no fresh here, there, not seems are kept, have beented tall light ends."
Again, J. E. Crane writes in this sum-styustium an article so full of birth and point that we can not forbear publishing the whole of it here in permanent form :
How discussions are particularly why some players are some early than others?: Experiments of Charles Darwin.
Many volumes have been published in several different languages upon the fertilization of flowers-the first by Christian "O'mord Springs," in 1936; yet the subject attracted but little attention until thirty or forty years later, since which time many scientists have given the subject much attention.
Our most continent botanists now classify flowering plants in their relation to fertilization into two classes: _Acmembillousand Entaminabites_--literally, the wind-lovers and insect-lovers. The flowers fertilised by the wind are dual in color, and nearly des-lues of odor or honey. The sexes are frequently separated, either on the same or on separate parts. They produce a superabundance of pollen, light and dry, easily transported by air or wind,
However, they form formidable. Many flowers that invite insects appear to be capable of self-fertilization, and often are: get the pollen from a neighboring plant of the same species seems more potent. Some flowers are constructed with stannies so placed that their pollen can not find upon the stigma of the snow flower, and have special adaptation for the transport of pollen by insects from one flower to another. One curious plant produces small inconsistencies flowers early in the season, capable of self-fertilization; later in the season it produces more shops flowers that encome before only through the agency of insects.
Many plants remain constantly larger unless only preyevic the visits of insects. Some of your readers have doubtless observed how the fusel
did not produce a single scroll, while, too heads on plants growing outside, which were visited by bees, yielded 88 grains weight of seeds; and in 80 seeds weighed two grains, the hundred beads must have yielded 293 seeds." His experience with white observer was nearly the same.
Another most interesting result of his experiments was that plants grown from seed of self-fertil flowers were, as a rule, when grown wide by side with seed of cross-fertil flowers, much less vigorous, although in other respects the conditions were as nearly alike as it is possible to make them. On page 27th he says, "The simple fact of the necessity in many cases for extremes and in the transport of the pollen, and the many curvatures for this purpose, render it highly probable that some great harmful is thus gained; and this conclusion has now been firmly established by the superior growth, vigor, and fertility of plants of crossed percentage over these of self-fertil pentapuries."
In _Gluttings in Lee Culture_ for June 1, 1894, Prof. Cook furnishes this additional:
Prof. Bailey, the very able horticultural of Cornell University, writes: "Bees are much more efficient agents of pullemination than wind, for our fruits; and their absence is among deleterious."
The Division of Vegetable Pathology, of the Department of Agriculture, has just issued a most valuable bulletin "Pollemination of Pearl-horses," by Norman B. Waite. Mr. Waite'says: "Inelemental mention has been made of insect-visitors. We should not proceed without having some stress upon the importance of these visits. The common honey-level is the most regular, important, and abundant visitor, and probably does more good than any other species." He says, further, that cool or rainy weather interferes _sotonly_ with insect-visits. Many varieties (20 out of 34 of those) lie experimented with, says, Mr. Waite, require cross-pollemination; and the pollen must be from a different variety. Bees and other insects are the agents of the transportation of pollen. In summing up, Mr. Waite says--and this from crucial decisive experiments: "Plant mixed orchords, or, at least, avoid planting solid blocks of one variety. He sure that there are sufficient lines in the neighborhood revisit the blossoms properly. When feasible, endeavor to favor insect-visits by selecting sheltered situations, or by planting windbreaks."
Again, E. C. Green, of the Ohio Experiment Station, for June 1st writes:
Quite an interesting fact came under my observation this winter in tomato-forcing, along this line. We had in one house about 300 Dwarf Champions that were planted in August; and by the line winter set in they were as the and thirty plants as one could wish to see, and setting their fruit nicely. We felt glad to think what a nice crop of tomato we should have; but when January came, and they seem to ripp up their fruit, the bulk of it was about the size of hiskerynts, and _without any seeds_.