GLKANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



1. — One thousniid sections of comb honey from the J. D. Cox apiary. 



lirodueer of pollen in the Avorkl, one wliorl 

 of stamens sometimes yielding enough to be 

 gathered up with a teaspoon. Nectar is 

 secreted with equal profusion, and bees have 

 no difficulty in securing it. Under cultiva- 

 tion the banana is propagated by planting 

 })ieces of the stalk and suckers. It has 

 almost entirely lost the power of maturing 

 seeds. When pure seed of a pure-bred 

 plant is desired, so great is the effect of 

 the bees and other insects that it is neces- 

 sai-y to bag the flowers. 



Bees are sometimes maintained in (Cali- 

 fornia almond orchards to pollinate the 

 blossoms. If the gi'ower wishes certain 

 varieties, he should mix with cei'tain others 

 in order to secure the ei^'ect of cross-pollina- 

 tion. Very likely locality is important. Tt 

 is wise to plant with the view both to the 

 desirability of the varieties for market and 

 to their inter- fertility in the locality. 



Although part of the palms are pollinated 

 by the insects, the date palm is wind-pol- 

 linated in its natural state. For the past 

 four thousand years of its cultivation,. how- 



e\"er, man has been artificially pollinating it. 

 The date is an example of the separation of 

 the sexes on different trees, so that self- 

 pollination is impossible. 



Apparently the blossoms of the cacao or 

 cocoa tree are not pollinated by bees. Mr. 

 Barclay, of the Jamaica Agricultural So- 

 ciety, states that the blossoms are frequent- 

 ed by small insects which likely carry the 

 pollen ; but he is quite certain that cocoa is 

 not fertilized by bees. 



The blossoms of the fig are pollinated l)y 

 a certain special insect of its own, a species 

 of gall-wasp. The uncujtivated form of 

 the common fig, called the capinfig, is the 

 male. Its fruit is hard and useless, but is 

 the home of a small gnat-like gall-insect 

 which, in escaping from the orifice, covers 

 itself with pollen. The female runs to the 

 young blossom, which it enters to lay eggs, 

 and in doing so effects the fertilization of 

 the blossom. Were it necessary to produce 

 the fertile seed of the fig, male trees, or 

 caprifigs, would have to be planted dose to 

 the female fig-tree. 



