Bee Philanthropists.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLIII, Issue 16, 20 October 1909, Page 41

Bee Philanthropists.

Mr. Walter F. Reid, vice-chairman of the British Bee Keepers’ Association, gave some interesting experiences with bees in a lecture to the Royal Horticultural Society recently. He told of the elaborate precautions he had taken to keep bees from his fruit. He covered a gooseberry bush with muslin. The result was there were no bees and, practically speaking, there was no fruit. At least, the bush only yielded six berries, while two neighbouring bushes which were uncovered bore 151 and 167 respectively. A fruit-grower, he added, who saw that bees were not so bad as they were painted, actually encouraged them, to visit his fruit. He placed hives of bees among, his trees,, with the result that his crop increased fourfold. The reason, Mr Reid declared, was that the bees, passing from one plant to another, distributed pollen, which fertilised. the blossom. “It is estimated,” he said, “that one maize plant would produce 50,000,600 grains of pollen, and in the course of a single journey a bee

■would visit several thousands of blo»soms.” Another point in the bee’s favour mentioned by Mr Reid was that when people were stung by bees once or twice they became immune from bee poison, and also other poison. Sir Albert Rollit said that this theory probably gave rise to the country belief that a bee-sting was a remedy for rheumatism, which was, after aU, only a kind of poisoning.