STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 6l 



we must have cross fertilization. If we do not have cross fer- 

 tilization very soon we shall have too close inbreeding and the 

 plants will deteriorate, and the apples grown on apple trees ^f 

 course will become poorer and poorer. 



You can see that as the bee flies from one blossom to another 

 blossom he has some dust on his body and as he alights he fer- 

 tilizes the plants. Therefore the bee is most useful in this 

 process of cross-fertilization. Darwin is responsible for the 

 statement that nature abhors self-fertilization; that is, that we 

 must have some method of cross fertilization. 



This picture shows the worker bee, the bee in the hive which 

 does all the work or most of it. Here we have the queen bee. 

 The queen bee can best be described by this phrase, — that she 

 is an egg-laying machine, and more of that I will show vou 

 later. Here we have the drone which exists for the purpo=:e of 

 fertilizing the female and for no other purpose. In this cell 

 you see the egg as laid by the queen bee. Now that egg is 

 carefully cared for and it is fed by the worker bee inside the 

 hive. We may never understand the honey bee until we l<now 

 from whence it has come. Flying around among our flowers 

 and fertilizing them are a great many other bees in addition to 

 the honey bee, and these are the bees from which the honey 

 bee has developed. I show you here a little bee which digs a 

 hole in the ground. That hole is lined, pollen and nectar are 

 put in the bottom of the hole, the egg is laid which you can see 

 on top of the nectar and pollen, the hole -is closed up, and the 

 little bee goes away and allows that egg to hatch and feed on 

 the food stored there, and after a little while the little bee 

 flies out and gathers nectar and pollen just as the mother bee 

 has done. You see that the bee has dug the hole in the ground, 

 but now runs it horizontally after it has entered the ground a 

 little ways. It lines this hole with leaves cut from the rose. 

 After a while this little bee hatches and grows into a bee and 

 digs its way out and goes the way of the mother bee. This 

 slide will show you the bee flying over toward the entrance of 

 that hole in the ground. Here we have several nests, all with a 

 common entrance, and that suggests the beginning of social life 

 in bees. Here we find by digging down into the ground several 

 females, in there together, and there again we have the first 

 example of bees living together. 



