•346 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



« 



BEES AND FRUir. 



W. T. ZINT. 



This is a very important subject, one in which both the apiarian and fruit- 

 grower are alike interested, and the fact should be thoroughly understood , that 

 without this source of impregnation of blossom, fruit could not mature to any 

 .profitable extent. 



Some flowers produce only stamens or the male organs, while others— some- 

 times on the same plant in certain species, and in other species on entirely distinct 

 plants — produce pistil or the female parts of the flower ; and still other species pro- 

 duce both stamens and pistil in the same flower. Those possessing only pistil must, 

 of course, have pollen brought from the stamens, or they will not produce fruit ; 

 and, again, some of those possessing both stamens and pistil cannot be fertilized 

 by the pollen of the same flowers in which it grew ; or if fertilizition does take 

 place it is very imperfect, hence must have pollen brought from another flower to 

 insure the perfect growth of the fruit, hence the need of the aid of insects or the 

 wind to insure the productiveness of some of our plants. Red clover is a good 

 illustration of a plant needing the aid of insects, and in this particular case the 

 bumble-bee is the insect that performs the work of cross- fertilization. 



Again, there are other plants which reproduce by what Gray calls close or 

 self-fertilization — that is, the stamens of any particular flower fertilize the pistil of 

 that flower — and in these bees can play no important part; and conspicuous among 

 these, as Prof. Cook well says, are wheat;, oats, etc. The importance of cross- 

 fertiliz ition is not to b3 under-rated in discussing this question of bees for the 

 plant. 



Mr. Darwin has shown, by a long series of experiments, that self-fertilized 

 plants, that are fertilized by their own pollen, are generally very much inferior in 

 vigor and power of constitution to those that are crose-fertilized. So if you want 

 healthy and fruitful plants and trees, you must avail yourselves of the work of the 

 bees. Many fruit-growers and gardeners have been aware of these facts, and made 

 use of them. 



Mr. A. J. Root found a green-house in New York where bees were kept at 

 w^ork all winter, to save the otherwise laborious and expensive mode of hand- 

 fertilization. 



Some one may ask why this mixing up of the pollen of various plants will not 

 create great confusion in the vegetable kingdom by the production of hybrids, etc. 

 It was observed by Aristotle, more than 2000 years ago, that bees visit the flowers 

 of the same species as long as they can. 1 his has been confirmed by my own ob- 

 servation. 



Bee-keepers have never complained because fruit-growers planted largely 

 around their apiaries, but to the contrary, they have encouraged the planting of 

 fruits; hence their position has been merely a defensive one. They showed the 

 war-paint only when poisonous substance, set out to kill off", or when fruit-growers 

 sprayed their orchards with poisonous substance during the time the trees were 

 in blossom, or again, when eflorts were made to secure, by legislation, the removal 

 of bees from certain localities as a nuisance. 



It has been claimed that bees puncture fruit. Anyone who will examine care- 

 fully the jaws or mandibles of a worker- bee will see at once that they are not made 

 for cutting hard, tough substance, and this is one of the best evidences that they 



