"Yes," added his grandmother. "I don't want any bees around here, spoiling the fruit."
"But, grandmother, you haven't waited to find out what I'm going to do with them," said Bob. "I don't want to put them around the house. I want to put them between the clover meadow and the young orchard, and, besides, they don't spoil the fruit. It's the other insects that do that. A honey bee couldn't do that if it wanted to."
"Bob," asked his uncle, showing an interest for the first time, "why do you want to put them away over there?"
"Because I've been reading in the farm bulletins that the reason orchards have such poor crops of fruit is because they don't have enough bees to pollinate the blossoms. The bulletin said that every orchard should have a number of colonies of bees. Of course, the nearer the bees are to the blossoms the more honey they'll make, because the distance is short; besides, if we put them at the edge of the orchard next to the meadow when the clover is in bloom, they could work on the clover, too, just as easy as the orchard blossoms, and they'd make a lot of honey," he declared.
"Well, Bob, you certainly have been reading those books," said his grandfather, glancing up from his paper. "Between your own work, Joe, your new wife and your chore boy," he said, "you're going to lead a pretty busy life this summer, if I don't miss my guess."
"Well, why not, grandfather?" demanded Bob.
"No reason in the world, my boy, and you've hit the nail square on the head by locating the hives between the orchard and the meadow. A bee can probably make four to five times as much honey in a season there than if we put the hives out back of the barn or in some other place near the house."
"I'd like to please you in this matter, Bob, if I could," said his uncle, "but you know how things are this year. We're doing so much already that I don't feel as though I could spare a dollar to invest in bees."
"But, Uncle Joe, I haven't asked you to invest anything in bees. I was only wondering if there'd be some bees for sale. You know I have $72.97 myself on deposit at the First National, and I was wondering whether you'd be willing to let me buy the bees and take enough time off to look after them for the benefit the orchard would get. I've a notion that the bees could earn more for me than the money will earn at interest."
"Now, that's what I call real 'git up and git'," said his grandmother, suddenly forgetting her prejudice against bees, in admiration of the scheme.