BEES AND THEIR WORK

Press, Volume LXXIX, Issue 23943, 10 May 1943, Page 3

BEES AND THEIR WORK

VALUE TO AGRICULTURE FARMERS AND ORCHARDISTS BENEFIT Few people realise that although the beekeeping industry in New Zealand produced in normal seasons slightly more than 3000 tons* of honey and many tons of beeswax annually, the latter are only necessary by-products. The principal role of the industry was in pollination of the many agricultural crops for the production of seed and fruit. When giving this information to the convention of beekeepers sponsored by the Canterbury branch of the National Beekeepers’ Association, and held in Christchurch last week, Mr E. Smellie, apiary instructor of the Department of Agriculture, added: “Most people have an appreciation that honey bees are the only source of honey and beeswax.” The successful pollination of flowers was necessary, he pointed out, for the proper production of crops, ‘‘The value of the bees in this work,” he said, ‘‘is perhaps difficult to assess, but the bees earn many times as much for the farmers in fruit and seed production than they do for beekeepers in honey and wax production.”

To produce dairy products cows must have a well-balanced diet which included clovers. As the latter were self-sterile and relied on insect oollination, farmers were consequentially dependent on honey bees to ensure profitable seed yields through proper pollination. Clovers, he emphasised, were particularly important during war years.

Observations in Canterbury pastures, where red clover was grown under difficult conditions, confirmed the value of the honey bee. “It is a very short time since the majority of farmers and orchardists understood the value of the hive bee in the pastures and orchards,” said Mr Smellie. ‘‘On the contrary, as far as some fruitgrowers were concerned, they believed that they did much harm, and therefore they did much to discourage and prevent apiaries being established near their orchards. In recent years, however, the importance of honey bees in providing for pollination in commercial orchards is a question that has attracted their attention.”