21 EXPERIMENT STATION. [Jan. 



Howe vines. This variety came to full bloom in the midst of a period 

 of unusually hot weather in July, and had a larj^er jjercentai^e of the 

 pink blossoms than did the Early Blacks which blossomed earlier. 

 The vines under the tent, into which the honey bees were admitted, 

 had a very noticeably smaller i)roportion of these pink blossoms than 

 did the surrounding bog. They were, in fact, almost entirely absent. 

 These observations seemed to indicate that the i)eculiar pink color 

 of the bloom was a sign of fertilization failure. This pink coloring 

 certainly always accompanies lack of fertilization with the Early Black 

 variety, for it w'as just as noticeable in a 1910 experiment, in which 

 bees were shut out by mosquito netting, as it was in the 1911 experi- 

 ment. To make this matter more certain a large number of Howe 

 blossoms, showing this pink coloring, were marked with yarn and ex- 

 amined late in August. Hardly 2 in 11 had succeeded in producing 

 benies. This was less than one-half of the proportion of berries 

 to blossoms on the bog as a whole. In other words, a much smaller 

 proportion of pink blossoms than of normally colored ones produced 

 berries, thus confinning the indications obtained from tlie tent ex- 

 periments. To go with this there is the possibility that fertilization 

 may take place to some extent, though abnormally retarded, after a 

 blossom has taken on the pink color. 



After the unfertilized blossoms turned pink in tlie tent experi- 

 ments the corolla always hung on abnormally, so that the vines under 

 the tent, from which bees were excluded, appeared to be in full bloom 

 when, on the surrounding bog, the bloom was almost entirely past. 



The conclusion arrived at, from these and other observations, is 

 that it will often pay to keep honey bees near cranberry bogs during 

 the blossoming season. There are, undoubtedly, years in which this 

 practice will not repay anything for the extra labor and expense in- 

 volved. It is probable, however, that it will pay well to keep bees 

 in any season in which wild bees are scarce, or in which there is nuich 

 bad weather during the blossoming i)eriod to reduce the length of time in 

 wliich the bees can work. Unfortunately, we have not yet sufficient 

 data to make an estimate of the number of hives necessary for the 

 satisfactory pollination of a bog of any given acreage. 



With most varieties, an upright having 5 blossoms will probably, 

 as a rule, produce as many berries, if only 2 of those blossoms are 

 cross-fertilized, as it w'ould if all were fertilized. This is because the 

 cranberry, in conunon with other plants, always i)roduccs the means 

 of reproduction far in excess of what it uses. This is borne out by 

 the fact that the cro}) of berries under the hive-bee tent was not 

 greater than on the surrounding bog, though the lack of pink blos- 

 soms seemed to indicate a more jjerfect pollinization. 



