^^ 



ILLINOIS STATE BEE-KEEPERS' ASSOCIATION 



79 



is not difficult. Cover a small branch 

 of well -developed buds with light 

 gauze, thre or four days before the 

 opening of the first flower, and keep 

 it thus covered till the bloom is en- 

 tirely gone. The result will bea mini- 

 - mum of set fruit on that branch in al- 

 most any variety of fruit tree. 



Insects and bees especially are need- 

 ed, not only in the production of fruit, 

 but in the securing of seed as well, in 

 many of our useful plants. 



None of the clovers can be fertilized 

 without the agency of insects. Red 

 clover, as is well known, does not fur- 

 nish much if any seed at the first crop. 

 Red clover has this peculiarity of pos- 

 sessing a corolla so long and deep that 

 the honey bee and other small insects 

 cannot reach to the bottom of it in 

 average seasons. It is only during the 

 very dry years, when the corolla is 

 dwarfed, that the honey bee can reach 

 its honey. The bumblebee becomes in- 

 dispensable to its fertility and, as 

 bumblebees are very scarce in early 

 summer, the result is an almost entire 

 lack of formed seeds in the first clover 

 crop. But in very dry years the red 

 clover bloom has been short enough 

 to enable the honey bees to work upon 

 it during the first crop and in those 

 years farmers have noticed an abund- 

 ance of seed. 



Darwin was the first man to call at- 

 tention to these facts. When red clov- 

 er was imported into Australia, it pro- 

 duced no seed. Darwin ascertained 

 that there were no bumblebees there 

 and advised the importation of them 

 into that country. Henceforth red 

 clover produced seed there as well as 

 elsewhere. 



Not content with all these evidences, 

 some of our educators have made ad- 

 ditional experiments. Bulletin No. 289 

 of the United States Department of 

 Agriculture, dated September 21, 1915, 

 gives a detail of experiments conduct- 

 ed by J. M. Westgate, Agronomist, 

 with the collaboration of H. S. Coe, 

 assistant; also Messrs. Wianco and 

 Robbins of the Indiana Agricultural 

 Experiment Station, and Messrs. 

 ■Hughes, Martin and Pammel of the 

 Iowa Experiment Station. The latter, 

 who is Professor of Botany at Ames, 

 attended our field meet at Hamilton 

 in September, and gave us a very in- 

 teresting lecture on honey plants. The 

 Bulletin in question gives an account 

 of experiments conducted simultane- 



ously by these gentlemen on "the pol- 

 lination of red clover.'' 



I cannot very well go into all the 

 details of these experiments. It is 

 sufficient to say that they have added 

 to the evidence furnished by Darwin 

 and other early scientists. They prove 

 that, although it is possible to have 

 an occasional seed produced from self- 

 pollination of clover, the plant is prac- 

 tically self-sterile and "pollen must 

 come from a separate plant in order 

 to effect regular fertilization. 



In these experiments, clover heads 

 that were covered with tarlatan and 

 not in any way helped to pollinate 

 produced less than an average of one 

 seed for every ten heads. Clover heads 

 that were left to the agency of insects 

 produced an average of over 50 seeds 

 per head. 



If we were to hunt among the reports 

 published at different times in our bee 

 magazines, we could bring out some 

 marvelous incidents, relating to the 

 benefit secured through honey bees for 

 the pollination of fruit blossoms. For 

 instance, a few years ago, before the 

 honey bees became a source of revenue 

 in the irrigated plains of the Great 

 West, a fruit grower planted some 20 

 acres in cherry trees in a newly irri- 

 gated valley. To his great astonish- 

 ment, although the trees bloomed pro- 

 fusely, not one cherry w^as produced, 

 until someone suggested that bees 

 were needed. Some colonies of bees 

 were purchased and, from that time 

 on, the crops of cherries were regular 

 and full. On the Snake River, in Idaho, 

 the early settlers who -built their homes 

 and planted orchards in the few moist 

 spots, some thirty years ago, found 

 need of the bees to fertilize their fruit. 

 Now, wherever there is fruit produced, 

 they have the bees at the same time 

 and the reward comes both in fruit 

 and honey. 



Mr. Dadant — Since I wrote this I was 

 sent for review a book entitled "The 

 Apple," and of course the apple, a book 

 entitled "The Apple,-" is out of place 

 in the American Bee Journal; that is, 

 a review of it is really in its place in 

 a horticultural journal, but I found 

 this in it, which I think will interest 

 every one of you. On page 417 it says: 



"The pollen of one variety is carried 

 to the pistils of another in two natural 

 ways — by the wind and by insects. 

 Bees, wasps and flies aid in the cross - 

 pollination of orchard fruits, and of 



