THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



175 



close fertilized by tlie pollen which is ready 

 in abundance, and often falls upon the 

 stiffina of the same flower. Bees cause the 

 flowers to get seeds by crossing with the 

 proper pollen. Our crop of flax seed, then, 

 is benefitted in yield, and in some cases 

 entirely dependent on the aid of the little 

 busy bee. Our connnon garden beans are 

 self-fertilizing to a certain extent, but the 

 crop is more than doubled by the aid of bees. 



Most or all plants are better for a cross. 

 This is not always so apparent at first, as it 

 is after several generations of plants raised 

 from self-fertilized tlowers. In such cases, 

 a cross adds increased vigor and fruitful- 

 uess. Many, very many flowers you see are 

 as plainly intended for cross fertilization as 

 the beak and talons of the eagle are intend- 

 ed tor catching, holding and tearing prey. 

 Not honey bees, but little insects nearly 

 akin, produce the galls on oak. The oak 

 kindly receives the egg, swells up a soft 

 succulent house and gives the young worm 

 an abundance of food. An insect lays an 

 egg in the stem of a golden-rod, or in the 

 tip of a young stem of willow. A brush in 

 one case, a cone in the other is produced to 

 nourish the young worm and feed and shel- 

 ter it to maturity. Whether these insects 

 repay these plants for their kind reception I 

 have not been able to Jind out. Paid or not 

 paid, they have food enough and to spare 

 tor these interesting little creatures. With 

 small bladders, the bladderwort is busy 

 catching microscopic amimals, and retain- 

 ing them till dead, and then slowly trans- 

 ferring the nourishing juices to the rest of 

 the plant. Here is cruelty even among 

 humble plants. The queer common pitcher 

 plant of our swamps is supplied on the in- 

 side with spines pointing downwards. This 

 is tiie case with numerous others on the 

 continent. Some of them prepare a honey- 

 ed secretion which grows more abundant 

 until the lid or open mouth of the pitcher is 

 reached. Insects are enticed, lured on, like 

 a tippler in the dram shop, to the open 

 mouth of destruction. Curiously-construct- 

 ed lids make the mouth dark, and help to 

 keep the insect from escaping. Most of 

 them cannot walk up the inside of the 

 pitcher. Tliey are drowned by the liquid 

 and devoured by the carnivorous plant. 



A few insects, among them a moth, is 

 provided with sharp stiff spines on her legs 

 which act like stilts to enable her to walk 

 up and down among the stiff spines in the 

 pitcher. When a boy, we used to make a 

 box trap for squirrels and rats. To ileceive 

 them and make them Avaste their strength, 

 in busily gnawing where it would not in- 

 jure the trap, we bored small holes through 

 the sides, and nailed over a piece of tin 

 with a hole through it to let in the light. 

 In the pitcher plant of the Southern swamps 

 are thin translucent spots towards which 

 the insects are attracted instead of the open 

 mouth above which is shaded by the over- 

 showing lid. This is one of nature's cun- 

 ning traps. The martynia plant and others 

 catch and suck to death with their sticky 

 glands innumerable small insects. The 

 venus fly trap of Carolina, everyone knows 

 about, and very likely they have heard of 

 the several kinds of sun-dews which catch 

 little flies with their glands. 



Honey is secreted in different parts, or 

 by different organs of the flower. Sepals, 

 petals, stamens, pistils, and disk, each in 

 aiffereut flowers is found to secrete nectar. 



By this I mean that one kind of flower 

 secretes honey with its petals, another kind 

 by sepals and so on. Petals attract bees. 

 Saunders, of Canada, cut off the petals of 

 raspberries and by so doing made it dirticult 

 or impossible for the bees to find the honey. 

 Individual bees have been observed to 

 behave differently about flowers, in some 

 respects, from a majority of bees. Some 

 are excentric. They have their own pecu- 

 liarities. Nageli put artificial flowers to 

 branches, and used essential oil on some, 

 and on others he used no oil. The odor at- 

 tracted them to the flowers containing it. 

 Aristotle, 2.000 years ago saw that hive bees 

 worked continously on flowers of the same 

 species. They even do so when the flowers 

 are not all colored alike, as in some plants 

 in our flower gardens. By this means they 

 economize time. They get the hang of it. 

 They learn how better to make more rapid 

 motions, and to make every motion count. 

 The same as is true of people who become 

 expert in certain parts of any trade after 

 much practice in often repeating the same 

 operation. In some cases, large numbers of 

 honey bees soon learn to glean after bumble 

 bees, where the latter have made holes into 

 the nectar. I have seen orioles j)inching 

 the tube of the Missouri currant or yellow 

 currant, to get the little honey from each 

 flower. This left a small hole which the 

 bees were not slow to find, and frequently 

 use as long as the flower remained fresh. 



We have thus seen some of the diverse 

 contrivances by which plants are made to 

 secure cross fertilization. The list might 

 be almost indefinitely extended, and yet 

 find something different in nearly all of 

 them. Flowers shut up. go to sleep, bend 

 over in all manner of ways to prevent them- 

 selves from wind and weather, to retain the 

 essential parts in a fresh condition until the 

 time when the proper insects are likely to 

 be about. If they are intended for the 

 visits of moths, they open when the moths 

 are likely to fly, and do not waste their 

 sweetness in daylight. If, like the dande- 

 lion, they are dependent to any degree upon 

 bees and other day insects, there is no 

 need of their remaining wide awake all 

 night. They had better close up as they do, 

 and keep for the best part of several days. 

 So you see, the honey is placed in the 

 flowers as wages to pay the bees for serving 

 the plants. The colors and odors are ad- 

 vertisements to call the attention of insects 

 to the rich supplies of food in store for 

 them. It may bi; said that the honey is 

 there for the bees, but prlnvirlly it is there 

 for the good of the plant, secondarily for 

 the good of the insect. As has been said: 

 "The flowers surpass in an incomparable 

 degree, the contrivances and adaptations 

 which the most fertile imagination of the 

 most imaginative man could suggest with 

 unlimited time at his disposal." You who 

 like the honey bee and are so familiar with 

 its habits and worth, will think no less of it 

 on account of my showing its value to plants. 



Had good old Dr. Watts lived in our day, 

 and become familiar with those parts of 

 science, he would very likely have written 

 the familiar stanza in this way: 



How doth the little busy bee, 

 Improve each sliinin'^ hour, 

 By carry ins; pollen day by day 

 To fertilize each flower. 



W. J. Beal. 



Agricultural College, Mich. 



