M;irch, igio. 



Americanize Journal 



one mistake tliat is found among bee- 

 keepers everywhere is the faihue to 

 study the work of the past, and profit 

 thereby. 



In every locality there are outstandmg 

 successes and outstanding failures. 

 These may be of a single crop, or they 

 may extend to all branches of apicul- 

 tur'al work. There could not be tliis va- 

 riation when conditions as to nectar-pro- 

 ducing plants, etc., are similar, without 

 some reason. Why has one failed and 

 another succeeded? Have you ever tak- 

 en the trouble to solve the problems 

 thus presented in your own experience, 

 and that of your neighboring bee-keep- 

 ers? If not, you have been missing one 

 of the most valuable sources of practical 

 information. 



Sometimes the reason why is not so 

 easily determined, but iri most cases the 

 thinking man can find it, and when he 

 has learned to hunt for these hidden 

 treasures, and then uses them in his 

 apiary, puts them into practice, he is in 

 a fair way to achieve the success every 

 man prizes. The writer has seen men in 

 what were called poor localities achieve 

 better results than their neighboring bee- 

 keepers with much better conditions. 

 Tlie one had given thought and energy 

 to his work ; the other had not. The 

 fact is, that too many of us have never 

 learned to think and reason. We have 

 accepted the traditions and customs 

 handed down to us without questioning 

 their value, or determining the reasons 

 for their use. They may suit our con- 

 ditions, or they may not, and until we 

 know we cannot keep bees intelligently. 

 The bee-keeper should be the greatest 

 reasoner on earth. He has every con- 

 dition favorable for the development 

 of reasoning powers. He is breathing 

 the pure, fresh air continually, is furn- 

 ished with an abundance of healthful 

 exercises, and has before him, always, 

 problems for his solution, changing a 

 hundred times every day to meet con- 

 stantly changing conditions. No need to 

 go into one of the so-called professioris 

 to develop the mind ; the opportunity is 

 before him continually. 



Why, then, is'the ordinary bee-keep- 

 ers not a reasoner? Because he works by 

 rote rather than by reason. If a bee-keep- 

 er moves into a new locality and fol- 

 lows methods in advance of his fellow 

 bee-keepers, he will be watched closely, 

 and, if he succeeds, his methods will 

 gradually become the common practice 

 of the neighborhood. His neighbor bee- 

 keepers borrow his methods, or often 

 unconsciously slip into them. Bee- 

 keepers by rote, they have adopted the 

 practices of the successful one without 

 caring to find out ic/iy they are supe- 

 rior to their own. They have cheated 

 themselves out of the mental develop- 

 ment they might have had, and have 

 degenerated into mere imitators, instead 

 of workers and investigators. 



These criticisms do not hold true of 

 all bee-keepers, but of too large a per- 

 centage of them. There are men in 

 every community who are thinking, rea- 

 soning, and investigating men, and are 

 - of inestimable value to their neighbor- 

 ing bee-keepers, and to apicultural 

 work everywhere. All honor to them. 

 But there should be more of them. 

 Dodge City, Kans. 



Bees and Horticulture 



A'caJ before the Missouri Horticultural Society 



BY M. E. DARBY. 



.S7,7/<- Inspector af Apiaries for Missouri. 



A delightful combination; rich in na- 

 ture study; full of practical and scien- 

 tific research and moral teachings. In 

 their life and habits, their relationship 

 and mutual dependence, the one upon the 

 other, we find a most beautiful and use- 

 ful lesson in the harmony of nature — 

 one which holds us in wonder and 

 amazement, while we consider the mar- 

 velous provision in nature for the accom- 

 plishing of good results and the preven- 

 tion of waste. Here we find the one get- 

 ting its food supply from the other, out 

 of a product— honey and pollen— that 

 would otherwise be wasted; and, while 

 so doing, is unwittingly performing a 

 service that means the perpetuation of 

 the species of the other. Hence we find 

 that the profusion of nectar-bearing 

 flowers, which are so generously pro- 

 duced all over the country, in cultivated 

 orchards, fields, pastures and gardens, to 

 be absolutely necessary for the well-be- 

 ing of the bees. While, on the other 

 hand, the bees and other insects are a 

 necessity to the fertilization of the 

 flowers, and the production of seed for 

 the perpetuation of their kind. 



To enable the uninformed to better 

 understand this relationship, let us brief- 

 ly notice the construction of the flower, 

 the arrangement of its parts, the func- 

 tions performed; then the means for its 

 pollenization, and the special adapta- 

 tion of the honey-bee to this work. 



The flower, which is but a special de- 

 velopment of the leaf growth, is pecu- 

 liarly arranged in itself for some spe- 

 cial purpose ; and those modified leaves 

 are converted into special parts or or- 

 gans to accomplish this prearranged pur- 

 pose, viz., reproduction. For this end, 

 these modified members are developed 

 into two sets of organs, beautifully and 

 systematically arranged. 



1st. The outer or floral envelope, con- 

 sisting of the calyx and corolla, which 

 serve for protection and attraction. 



2d. The inner or essential organs, 

 consisting of the stamens and pistils. 

 The functions that these perform bear 

 a true resemblance to sex in the animal 

 kingdom. The stamens, or male organs, 

 the anthers of which are the principal 

 parts, these contain the pollen-grains or 

 fertilizing element. When the anthers 

 are ripe they burst open and the pollen- 

 grains are ready to be transferred to 

 the receptive surface of the stigma. 



The pistils, or female organs, consist 

 of the ovary or seed-receptacle, contain- 

 ing the ovules, the style and stigma. 

 The stigma is the upper portion of the 

 pistil, which when ripe presents a vis- 

 cid surface which receives the fertiliz- 

 ing element from the stamens. Tliese 

 essential organs may be contaiiied in 

 the same flower, or they may be in dif- 

 ferent flowers, and on different plants or 

 trees. 

 The Fertiliz.vtion of the Flower 



In most plants there is a prepotency 

 to foreign pollen ; in others, the flowers 

 are absolutely sterile to their own pol- 

 len; in others the essential organs come 

 to maturity at separate times; still oth- 



ers have the stamens in one flower and 

 the pistils in another. This shows a_ wise 

 provision in nature to prevent self-fertil- 

 ization. Here w-e see the wisdom in the 

 forces back of nature in providing the 

 tempting sweets to entice insect visitors. 

 Darwin summed this subject up by say- 

 ing: "Nature abhors perpetual self-fer- 

 tilization." 



To accomplish perfect pollenization of 

 flowers, so that a generous crop of seed 

 or fruit may be secured, some animate 

 or inanimate agencies must largely be 

 depended upon to perform this service. 

 In some plants and trees the pollen is of 

 a dry or powdery nature, and produced 

 in great abundance, so that the wind or 

 inanimate agency docs the important 

 work. But in many cultivated fruits, the 

 pollen produced is more of a sticky na- 

 ture, and not produced so abundantly, 

 and not so easily carried by the wind, 

 making it necessary for some animate 

 agencies, such as bees and other insects, 

 to perform the greater part of this ser- 

 vice. To induce insects to visit the flow- 

 ers and perform this mission, nature 

 placed a tiny drop of nectar, which is 

 suitable for insect food, in the bottom 

 of the flower in such a manner that, to 

 obtain it, the insect must come in contact 

 with the essential organs as it goes from 

 flower to flower getting its food. Here 

 the bees render a very valuable service 

 to mankind, as pollen distributors — a 

 service that we do not appreciate as we 

 should, for the reason of our inability to 

 measure the exact amount of service 

 rendered, and, further, there are no es- 

 tablished wages for a bee's day's work, 

 whether it be organized or unorganized 

 labor. Yet the bee knows full well what 

 reward it will get, or what the penalty 

 will be, if it "knocks off" and "goes_ on a 

 strike," while the golden grains of pol- 

 len and silver drops of nectar are evap- 

 orating and wasting in a field that will 

 be fruitless. 



The bee is especially adapted to the 

 work of distributing pollen, by being 

 provided with a long, flexible tongue for 

 lapping up the tempting sweets secreted 

 in the nectaries of the flowers; its hind 

 legs are provided with a pair of pollen- 

 baskets, in which it carries great pellets 

 of pollen to its hive, to be used in the 

 preparation of food for the larval bees; 

 its body is covered with a number of fine 

 hairs or bristles, which gather the pollen- 

 grains as the bee goes from flower to 

 flower in search of pollen and honey. 



While the bee is busy in gathering its 

 precious loads to carry home to its hive, 

 it is incidentally carrying the ripe pol- 

 len-grains from one flower to another, 

 and brushing them on the receptive stig- 

 ma; thus performing an act, as it were, 

 of "touching the button" and sending 

 the current of life down into the baby 

 fruits, fertilizing the ovules, and causing 

 the development of seed and fruit. Im- 

 proper pollination results in a failure of 

 fruit to set, or in its dropping before ri- 

 pening. It has been asserted by those 

 who have made the subject a careful 

 study, that the work done by bees in pol- 

 len distribution is w^orth more to human- 

 itv than the crop of honey produced. 



A majority of our fruits arc evidences 

 of the bees' good work. A large number 

 of them have come as chance seedlings, 

 being a product of varieties then exist- 



