STATE POMOI^OGICAL SOCIETY. 151 



A FEW PHASES OF THE BUSY BEE. 

 Miss L. M. Scales, Temple. 



"Education is the chief industry of the United States," said 

 a witty American lawyer on one occasion before the professors 

 of a British University. And as a practical as well as scientific 

 knowledge is necessary to insure success in any art, often much 

 may be learned in nature studies from those, who, though 

 ignorant of books, yet have the gift to "Call the birds from 

 the trees, charm the black snake out of the ledges, and bring 

 back the swarming bees." For to the student and true lover 

 of nature any phase of birds, bees and flowers it always inter- 

 esting, from the first soft notes of the song sparrows at early 

 morn with their low accompaniment of the hum, hum of the 

 bee gathering pollen, till the last flower has faded, the birds 

 have taken their winter flight and only now and then a solitary 

 bee cheerily greets you as you pass. 



The family which bees constitute is called from the Latin, 

 "honey-bearing" and from the Greek, "flower-loving." My first 

 impressions of the honey-bee were of the latter type. 



"A garden full of bees, large drooping poppies and queen 

 hollyhocks with butterflies for crowns, tree peonies and pinks, 

 and goldilocks." 



The great mission of the bee is fertilization of the flower, 

 that a fruit and seed may be developed. Few except horticul- 

 turists understand that the importance and value of this is 

 beyond computation. Although the winds also carry pollen they 

 cannot be relied upon and the fruit is often small and imperfect. 



Many orchardists keep bees almost solely for the purpose of 

 fertilizing the apple blossoms, the fruit as a result being much 

 larger and finer. It is the same with the cherry, pear and straw- 

 berry. Cucumbers cannot be grown to any extent under glass 

 without their aid ; bees will live happily in a greenhouse and 

 even swarm there. Honey-bees are often wrongly accused of 

 biting fruit in order to obtain the juices but they cannot do this 

 until the fruit has been punctured by some other insect as they 

 are not provided with sharp jaws like the wasp and hornet. 



