1894. 



THE AMERICAN BEE-KEEPER. 



those of the ancient Medes and Per- 

 sians, never changes, is, "Thou shalt 

 not inter-marry." In-breeding is as 

 repulsive to inanimate life as to civi- 

 lized society. But plants are unable 

 to travel and seek their consorts in re- 

 mote family connections. Insects, 

 however, do travel, and since the pol- 

 len-dust which is provided in the 

 blossom as the life-giving element to 

 other flowers, is just the food needed 

 to develop the larval insect, the bee, 

 as well as all pollen-eating insects, 

 while in quest of the natural food for 

 the young of their kind, in passing 

 from flower to flower, carry the ferti- 

 lizing dust on legs and bodies, and 

 unwittingly aet as agents in cross- 

 fertilizing the plants which they visit. 



A bee, in obtaining the load which 

 it can carry on its legs to the hive, 

 probably visits on an average fifty 

 blossoms. ( Oftentimes these are grow- 

 ing quite remote from each other. 

 Hence the chances are increased that 

 sonic of the dust adhering to the bee's 

 or body will he rubbed against 

 the receptive pistils of plants so dis- 

 tantantly related that in-breeding is 

 prevented. 



It is well known too, that in many 

 plants the stamens and pistils do not 

 arrive at that particular stage of de- 

 velopement when fertilization takes 

 place at the same time. This i 

 other of Nature's plans to prevent too 

 close in-breeding, and another reason 

 why bees and insects are necessary to 

 the complete fructification of the 

 fruits as well as the highest develop- 

 ment of plant life. 



But bees do not always live on the 

 nitrogenous food which pollen-bearing 

 plants furnish. Mature bees live "ii 



honey. This is the only proper food 

 for them after maturity. Hence the 

 nectar in the flowers. It tempts the 

 bee to enter, with the hope that some 

 of its pollen-dust may be carried to a 

 distantly related plant, or that some 

 already adhering to its body may be 

 brushed against its receptive pistils. 



The primary object of nectar in 

 flowers was not to furnish man a 

 dainty and delectable sweet, but as an 

 inducement to insects to visit the 

 plant and accomplish for it what it 

 could not, unaided, do. The fact that 

 man has learned by observation and 

 experience that bees will gather and 

 store more honey than they need for 

 winter, and has turned the instinct of 

 this industrious worker to his own ad- 

 vantage and profit, does not prove that 

 this is not a secondary object in their 

 creation 



Bees are as necessary in the econ- 

 omy of Nature as birds. They take 

 no life from the plant which they 

 visit, but give life through fructifica- 

 tion, and in the added vigor which 

 comes from crdss-f ertilizatson . The 

 drop of nectar is of no advantage to 

 the plant, if not appropriated, for it 

 soon evaporates and is wasted. Bees, 

 therefore, while performing a valua- 

 ble service to the farmer in the ferti- 

 lization of clover, to the horticultur- 

 ist in assisting him to a full crop of 

 fruit, to the florist ami market-gar- 

 dener by constant and friendly visits, 

 add another resource to rural econo- 

 mic.-, which, without their aid, would 

 be scattered to the four winds of 

 I h aven. 



Bees never injure sound fruit, Al- 

 though this charge has been laid at 

 their door, all creditable expert testi- 



