172 AGRICULTURE OF MAINE. 



success of the orchard. The following season bees were pro- 

 vided in the orchard which had previously failed, with the result 

 that the owner netted $3,800 on his crop. 



It is well to stop a moment and inquire why the services of 

 bees are so indispensable. You horticulturists doubtless know 

 the key to the situation, or at least you know one key, namely, 

 that bees are the carriers of pollen from the stamen of one 

 flower perhaps to the pistil or female organ of another flower. 

 Pollen thus transmitted from stamen to pistil is spoken of as 

 cross pollination. When this minute pollen grain reaches the 

 sensitive stigma, a "pollen tube," or the outgrowth of the pollen 

 grain, penetrates down through the pistil to the embryo seed 

 or ovule where there is a union of the contents of the pollen 

 grain and the ovule. This is spoken of as fertilization. This 

 very common phenomenon is widely understood and it is recog- 

 nized that bees function in its accomplishment. But it is in a 

 deeper sense that the honeybee is important in the fruit and 

 vegetable industries. 



It is well known that the prevalence of all wild life, plant or 

 animal, is subject to fluctuations due to favorable and unfavor- 

 able environmental conditions. Some years in a locality there 

 is a pest of mosquitoes or house flies. In succeeding years they 

 may be few. It is so with the game birds and the fish of the 

 sea ; they are plenty or scarce from time to time. It may there- 

 fore be expressed as a biological law, that the prevalence of all 

 h'fe is subject to fluctuation ; bees have their periods of ups and 

 downs. When favored they rise to the crest of prosperity and 

 prevalence. It may be that disease enters a locality and reduces 

 their numbers. Hard winters may also depreciate them so that 

 in a year when they are needed for their service as pollen-bear- 

 ers, they are at a low ebb. 



When the horticulturist realizes that he is depending on this 

 fluctuating service of wild bees, he asks what he can do to over- 

 come the unreliability and assure himself of a maximum crop 

 or a more even crop. The recommendation would be to estab- 

 lish an apiary in proportion to the size of the orchard or garden. 

 This eliminates any dependency upon wild bees or honeybees 

 from neighboring apiaries. Yet their additional service will do 

 no harm. It is far better to flood an orchard with bees during 

 the blooming period than to have a scarcity. Furthermore, the 



