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BETTER FRUIT 



Honey Bees as Pollenizers and Spray Injury 



By Susan M. Howard, in Massachusetts Report State Board of Agriculture 



TREATING the subject as a fruit 

 grower as well as a beekeeper en- 

 ables the writer to appreciate the ines- 

 timable value of the honey bee as a 

 pollenizer of certain grains, small 

 fruits, vegetables and tree fruits. The 

 discussion is attempted in plain terms 

 without resorting to confusing botani- 

 cal technicalilies. The writer will feel 

 amply repaid if the article is stimu- 

 lative of even a minor inquiry into the 

 ways of bee nature. 



Today the honey bee is more and more 

 considered an invaluable ally of the 

 farmer. The orchardist and small fruit 

 grower consider their colonies as a part 

 of their equipment, and their use as 

 much a factor in the success of horti- 

 culture as is cultivation, application of 

 fertilizers, the growing of cover crops, 

 pruning, spraying and the like. To the 

 farmer, especially if he be a fruit 

 grower, a honey crop may be regarded 

 as secondary, or as a by-product, while 

 to the beekeeper it is the primary prod- 

 uct. Thus while the ultimate aims of 

 the horticulturist and beekeeper may 

 be different, yet they are interdepend- 

 ent. 



WTiile the orchardist may profit by 

 the visits of bees from nearby apiaries, 

 or from a wild colony in a tree, roof or 

 chimney, yet the uncertainty of their 

 service is so great that the forehanded 

 fruit grower provides a sufficient num- 

 ber of colonies at hand and among his 

 trees. In this connection it may be said 

 that it is not absolutely necessary to 

 place the colonies actually in the or- 

 chard, yet they should be not far 

 distant. Furthermore, the location of 

 the bees should not prevent satisfactory 

 cultivation. 



As ■'! factor of the importance of bees 

 near h\ an orchard, it may be cited 

 that I he distance at which bees gather 

 pollen is limited, seldom exceeding one- 

 half mile, which emphasizes the desir- 

 ability of bees at close range. On the 

 other hand, bees will forage for honey 

 at a srealer distance, up to about three 

 miles from the hive. Nevertheless, they 

 prefer frequent and short trips. Thus 

 if a radius of three miles be allowed, — 

 that is, a diameter of six miles — the 

 area of the circle would be 28 square 

 miles, or 18,080 acres, a part of which 

 territory would be imperfectly worked. 

 It should be remembered that bees for- 

 aging for honey frequently serve as the 

 bearers of pollen in cross-pollination, 

 as well as bees foraging for pollen 

 alone. It is this search of the bees for 

 their food which prompts their ines- 

 timable service to the fruit grower. The 

 means and mechanism of their opera- 

 tion, though mechanical yet intricate, 

 is referred to below. Being mechanical, 

 it might be accomplished by man at 

 great expense and with exceeding labor, 

 but this is generally recognized as im- 

 practicable from the commercial stand- 

 point. Bee labor is far cheaper than 

 human labor. 



This expensive process of hand pol- 

 lination is exceptional and only one 

 case is reported. In this instance the 

 process was resorted to by a cucumber 

 grower to whom the sting of the honey- 

 bee was seriously poisonous. The pro- 

 cess, however, is exceedingly old, and 

 according to Herodotus is known to 

 have been practiced five centuries be- 

 fore the Christian era. Much the same 

 method is today reported as that used 

 by this cucumber grower who has re- 



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sorted to hand pollination, and who 

 employs the tip end of a stiff featHer 

 by which he transfers the pollen of one 

 flower to the sensitive pistil of an- 

 other. In contrast to this laborious 

 method, the far more common practice 

 of the growers of cucumbers under 

 glass is to utilize a colony or more of 

 honeybees in their greenhouses. Thou- 

 sands of colonies of bees are thus used 

 in the hothouses around Boston and in 

 Massachusetts. Unfortunately, too, 

 many or most of these are sacrificed, as 

 the growers make little or no effort to 

 save the colonies which have served 

 them so faithfully in the tropical cli- 

 mate of the greenhouse — conditions ad- 

 verse to their well-being. 



The Function of the Honeybee in the 

 Transfer of Pollen. 



It is far from the purpose of this 

 paper to enter the vast and intricate 

 field of hybridization, involving the 

 problems of plant selection, improve- 

 ment and the production of new varie- 

 ties. Neither can the details of the life 

 history of the honeybee be given in de- 

 tail, which is as unlimited and wonder- 

 ful a field as are the intricacies of the 

 plant world, yet it is desirable to make 

 clear the relation and service of the 

 honeybee to the setting of our common 

 fruits and vegetables. 



It should be remembered that in most 

 plants the setting of the fruit involves 

 a sexual process. In plants, in contrast 

 to animals, the same individual may 

 bear both sexes or the sexes may be 

 apart in different individual flowers. 

 More in detail these may be grouped 

 under three headings: 



1. Both Sexes in One Flower — Some 

 plants produce perfect or bisexual flow- 

 ers, that is, those in which both the 

 male and the female organs of the flow- 

 er, the stamen (male) and the pistil 

 (female), are complete within the 

 flower. As an example. Parson's Beautij 

 strawberry may be cited. 



2. The Sexes Separated in Individual 

 Flowers — Other plants bear flowers 

 which are individually s t a m i n a t e 

 (male) and pistillate (female.) Yet both 

 sexes appear on the same plant, as, for 

 instance, in the squash, melon and cu- 

 cumber. 



3. The Sexes Separated in Individual 

 Flowers WTiich Are Borne on Different 

 Plants — As a further modification of the 

 second class, there are also plants which 

 produce only staminate (male) blos- 

 soms throughout the entire plant, and 

 are spoken of as male trees or plants. 

 Others produce pistillate (female) 

 blossoms throughout the entire plant, 

 and are spoken of as female plants. 

 Examples of these are found in the wil- 

 lows and poplar. The Sample straw- 

 berry is pistillate (female.) 



It at once becomes apparent in recog- 

 nizing that most of our fruits and vege- 

 tables involve a sexual process or the 

 union of the pollen and germ of the 

 egg, that there must be some means of 

 union, especially in the second and 

 third classes of flowers, where the two 

 sexes are respectively separated either 

 in individual flowers or in individual 

 flowers on separate plants. From prac- 

 tical experience, moreover, it is gener- 



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