A Comparison in Size of Pollen Baskets of Three Races of Honeybees

It is generally recognized that the honeybee is of great value to agriculture and related industries where pollination is a factor. Claims are often expressed that the honeybee is from ten to ninety times more valuable to the plant industries as a pollination agent, each season, than the annual monetary value of the honey crop. Beekeepers recognize that some colonies and some races of bees are more industrious than others in collecting honey, but the field of pollination has not been sufficiently investigated to establish which race of bees, if any, is the best pollination agent. The initial interest in this problem was to attempt to determine by some means of measurement the average and range in size of the pollen basket of the common races of bees. Fifty specimens of each race were selected for this study. They were mounted in cells, two to a slide, in isobutyl methacrylate polymer dissolved in xylol