MODERN MANAGEMENT,

from 50 to 75 lbs. honey each in a number of places in the State. Had all the hives of bees reported in the census been so managed that season they would have been valued higher, and the product instead of 52 per cent. would have been 100 or 150 per cent. at the least estimate, or more than double the amount received; while the winter losses, often occurring after a good season, from the many small swarms that are unable to live even with plenty of honey, would have been comparatively small.

Probably the knowledge most lacked by many old fashioned beekeepers, and which most hinders success is, how to bridge over poor seasons, or to feed when there is danger of bees starving, how to keep all colonies supplied with a good queen, and to produce the crop in the neat and attractive shape now demanded by both dealer and consumer. The reasons

WHY SO FEW BEES ARE KEPT

probably are, the fear of stings and the prejudice against bees by neighbors unacquainted with their habits, the erroneous views held by some fruit growers as to the injury done by bees to fruit, and a lack of knowledge of the great good done by bees in fertilizing the blossoms of orchard and garden crops while collecting honey. We do not hesitate to claim that

THE HONEY AND WAX CROP IS NOT THE MOST VALUABLE RESULT

of bee-keeping, but that the principal value of bees to man is their work of carrying pollen from flower to flower.

That they do this is generally overlooked or the fact when known is undervalued.

Naturalists tell us that honey is nature's bait by which bees are induced to take and distribute the fertilizing material. While pollen is distributed among certain blossoms by both insects and the wind, others are so shaped as to be wholly dependent upon the visits of bees.

"The bee takes to give, honey but a fraction of her labors. Man has timely help that he knows not of."

66 INSECTS AND PLANT FERTILIZATION."

(Introduction by the Editor of the "American Agriculturist” to six articles on the above subject, which commenced in that publication, May, 1866.)

"The part played by insects in the fertilization of flowers, i. e. in the carrying of the pollen or fertilizing dust from the anther which produces it to the stigma or that part of the pistil designed to receive it, is a subject now receiving much attention at the hands of naturalists.

It not only affords an interesting study to the curious observer, but the fact itself is of importance to the cultivator, as some of our products depend upon the aid of insects for their perfection, and probably the fruitfulness of many of them is largely influenced by the abundance or scarcity of bees and other honey and pollen seekers. Prof. Gray of Harvard University, the distinguished botanist, has consented to give us, in a series of articles, his observation upon the relation of insects to plants."

We quote from Prof. Gray's articles as follows:

"This sweet matter which flowers so generously produce is, so far as we know, of no direct use to the plant. That insects, in visiting flowers for honey, accidentally or incidentally aid in fertilization, by carrying pollen from anther to stigma, is familiarly understood."

"We cannot resist the conclusion that the aid of insects is, so to say, counted upon, that the blossoms are furnished with honey in order that they may attract insects."

"Why should insects be called in to do that which, by a little different arrangement, would be done by the flower itself?

"The key to the solution of the riddle he (Charles Darwin) found in the principle, recognized by breeders, that close breeding tended to sterilty and debility, while cross breeding among different individuals of the same species avoids this tendency."

"A bee cannot take the honey from an Iris flower without carrying off on its rough head some pollen from the anthers it must rub against. It cannot well take the honey from the next flower of the sort it flies to without depositing some of this pollen on the stigma as it seeks its feeding place." Speaking of orchids, he says: "To

cross the flower of the species is plainly an object of the whole contrivance, and an admirable contrivance it is, by which winged insects are solicited to do the work for sedentary flowers.

"Most of our common, brightly colored blossoms and many that are not at all showy, plainly reveal on inspection their adaptation to cross fertilization by the aid of insects."

"We need not multiply examples. Every garden and every field offers equally good examples-lessons which anybody may read and understand if he will only open his eyes."

"Are all flowers then, it may be asked, aided by insects in the essential business of forming seeds? By no means. In many cases the transport of pollen is left to the winds. Such flowers produce no honey, nor anything attractive to insects, and such flowers, we may add, have no showy corolla. So we may conclude that corollas, or bright colors in any part of the blossom, and also fragrance, are given to plants in order that they may attract insects and be aided by them; an aid which many of them are absolutely dependent on."

"Pines, spruces and the like, are left to the wind to fertilize." "Grasses and grains also depend upon the wind and have accordingly a vast excess of pollen."

"No plant is known in which at least an occasional cross breeding is not provided for." "The pollen is powerless or nearly so, upon the stigma of the same flower, but is efficient upon the stigma of neighboring flowers; and that breeding in and in, which seemed unavoidable from the structure of the blossom, is here prevented only by the differentiation of the pollen and stigma."

The following is from Silliman's Journal, 1862: "We all know how essential plants, and especially their flowers, are to the existence of the multitudinous swarms and tribes of insects, but it is hardly understood that the benefit is reciprocal-that in the long run, insects are also essential to the continued existence of many, if not of most species."-Prof. Asa Gray.

"In by far the greater number of flowering plants we find both the male and female element in the same flower, or, in other words, such plants are hermaphrodites. One would naturally suppose that there could be but one object in thus placing the sexual elements in such immediate juxtaposition, namely, that each pistil

might be fertilized by its own pollen or male element. Late researches have, however, made it evident that often among plants, the nuptials cannot be celebrated without the intervention of a third party, to act as marriage priest; and that the office of this third party is to unite the representatives of different households. To be specific, seed capsules are most productive when their ovules are fertilized by pollen from another plant or flower of the same plant. Breeding in and in can by absolute experiment, be proven to produce a degenerate offspring in the vegetable kingdom no less than in the human race. Now the marriage priests who officiate are insects in search of honey, the winds, or anything which by accident or design may carry the pollen from one flower to another.-J. F. Rothbeck, American Naturalist, 1868.

"Mr. Charles Darwin and other botanists have proved beyond a doubt that some flowers, in which the pollen may easily gain access to the stigma of the same flower, are sterile unless fertilized by pollen borne from other flowers, while many are much more productive by a cross fertilization.

"Bees are willing agents here, as in other instances, alighting first on the stigma of the oldest flowers, which are farthest down the stem, and then passing up to others which are younger. Besides collecting nectar at the bottom of the flower, they collect the pollen by scraping the style upon each side with their legs, and when calling at the next flower, first strike the exposed stigma, leaving a few little morsels as tribute for the bountiful supply.". W. J. Beal, on "Agency of Insects in Fertilizing Plants," Amercan Naturalist, 1868.

66 THE GREAT IMPROVEMENT OF THE STRAWBERRY

has been brought about by cross fertilization and selection of the best of each kind. Nature apparently is not willing to develop a luscious receptacle or berry unless she in turn can use it as a resting place for seeds."- Minnesota Experiment Station Bulletin.

"Orchards in which bee hives are placed bear heavier crops than those not thus favored. Bees are in Europe profitably introduced, into peach houses in order to effect the polination of the flowers." Packard's Entomology for Beginners.

At one time, we are informed, a person living in Pawtucket'

attempted to grow strawberries under glass. He raised plenty of vines and blossoms but they produced no fruit. Some one who knew told him why, and when bees were procured the blossoms matured and produced fruit.

It is said that if strawberry blossoms are covered by fine muslin they drop off instead of maturing, but if fertilized artificially by hand they mature. Some of the best bearing varieties of strawberries only produce female blossoms or pistils, the Crescent Seedling being an example, therefore growers of this fruit have one row in every seven of a kind having an abundance of pollen, and that blossoms at the same time.

WHEN RED CLOVER WAS FIRST BROUGHT INTO AUSTRALIA,

although fine crops were raised, with plenty of blossoms, no seed could be secured. At last some one sent to England for "bumble" bees.

They were procured in winter, while dormant, by Mr. Abbott, a prominent English bee-keeper; were sent in that condition and successfully introduced. As soon as they became plenty there was no further trouble in securing a full crop of seed.

66

A

Honey bees work on second crop in this country at times. Prof. Lucas, a celebrated pomologist in Germany, says: careful and observant bee-keeper at Potsdam writes to me that his trees yield decidedly larger crops since he has established an apiary in his orchard, and the annual product is now more certain and regular than before, though his trees had always received due attention."-American Bee Journal.

Frank Cheshire says that in each apple matured five fertilizations have been necessary. If none are effected, the calyx which forms the flesh of the fruit, instead of swelling, dies and soon drops. If some parts are fertilized those parts only develop, making a deformed fruit, and it rarely hangs long enough to ripen, becomes a windfall; also that gooseberries are absolutely dependent upon insects for fertilization, and the failure of this crop is not so uniformly the result of frost as some suppose, but from cold weather at the critical time, preventing the visits of bees. He believes the present development of the perfume, nectar secretion,