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BEES – The lifework of bees is the storing up of honey which they collect, as nectar, from blossoms. Visiting flower after flower they are constantly brushing against, first, the stamens (or male organs) of one blossom and then the pistil (or female organ) of another. From the former they pick up on their body or legs a sprinkling of pollen which they later carry to and deposit upon the stigma (sticky tip) of the second flower’s pistil. This brings about the pollination or fertilization of the second flower and results in the development of seed or fruit.

Owing to the numbers and ceaseless activity of bees – both wild and “domesticated” – the service they unintentionally render becomes a most important factor in the production of good crops in orcharding, gardening and the growing of certain vegetables, notably tomatoes, cucumbers and melons – especially in greenhouses, where wind (the other important natural pollinating agent) cannot act. Because most wild bees are of what is called the “solitary” type, living alone or in small groups, the “social” bees, of which the honey bee is the most important, play by far the larger part in the work described.

Bees As Garden Helpers

BEES AS GARDEN HELPERS – Although many gardeners and orchardists do not appreciate the debt they owe to bees, others do, and are capitalizing it. To insure the maximum fertilization of their crops, they maintain colonies of honey bees in their orchards, gardens or greenhouses. In the latter case this practice has largely done away with the former hand-pollinating of tomatoes – a slow, tedious procedure now restricted to special hybridizing activities.

A second benefit derived from bees is, of course, the surplus honey which, even from a single hive, will, in the course of a year, represent a welcome, wholesome addition to the family diet. Finally, a small apiary (as a collection of beehives is called) can be a source of much pleasure and interest to anyone to whom natural history appeals ; it supplies a picturesque feature in the garden or landscape ; and it calls for but little work, and that of a pleasant and not arduous nature. A modest start in beekeeping can be made at nominal cost – say, $25 – for a colony or “nucleus” of bees (including the essential queen or “mother of the hive”) ; a modern sectional hive with brood frames (in which the bees raise their young) and “supers” (in which the surplus honey is stored) ; a second, reserve hive ; and a few necessary accessories. From such a start, with a little study and average success, it should not be difficult to build up as extensive an enterprise as may be desired with the knowledge that, meanwhile, the garden and orchard are being greatly assisted. Anyone planning to go into beekeeping will find detailed instructions in bulletins obtainable from the U. S. Department of Agriculture and the Agricultural Experiment Stations in a number of States.

Bees Not Harmful

BEES NOR HARMFUL – Bees are sometimes thought of by the uninformed as harmful to plants and gardens. As a matter of fact, their good qualities more than make up for any occasional shortcomings. Growers of greenhouse cut flowers may complain that bees invade their structures and, by pollinating their crops, cause them to mature more quickly, thereby lessening their keeping qualities and market value. This effect, should it threaten to become serious, can always be prevented by screening the greenhouse ventilators.

Fruit growers occasionally claim to have seen bees biting or stinging fruits and sucking the juices – but the probable facts in all such cases are that the bees observed were merely sucking up juice as it oozed through breaks in the skin of the fruit already made by bird, wasp or, possibly, a blow.

One kind of solitary bee (the leaf-cutter bee) cuts small pieces out of the leaves of roses and other shrubs with which to line its tunnels, but this damage is rarely serious. As to any fears on the part of garden visitors that the presence of bees necessarily means stings, it can safely be said that a colony (or several colonies) of bees in an out-of-the-way corner of the garden, correctly handled and not molested, is very unlikely indeed to be responsible for any promiscuous stinging. Anyone who has ever watched an expert beekeeper work, unprotected, among his hives is likely to agree with the assertion that the modern, improved races of bees are just about domesticated and deserving of a place in the garden as poultry or birds. And always, it must be remembered, they are more than “paying their way” in useful service. or dug under or raked into the seed-bed.