TEE AMERICAN APIGULTURIST. 



Darwin, Gray, Beal and others, 

 and I will forbear to discuss them 

 further. 



But many of our flowers, which 

 are so arranged that the pollen falls 

 easily upon the stigma, like the 

 clovers, squashes and fruit blos- 

 soms, fail of full fruitage, unless 

 forsooth, some insect bear the 

 pollen of one flower to the pistil of 

 another. As has been repeatedly 

 demonstrated, if our fruit bloom 

 or that of any of our cucurbitaceous 

 plants be screened from insects the 

 yield of seed and fruit will be 

 but very partial. Professor Beal 

 and our students have tried some 

 very interesting experiments of 

 this kind with the red clover. All 

 of the plants under observation 

 were covered with gauze that the 

 conditions might be uniform . Bum- 

 ble bees were placed under the 

 screens of half of these plants. 

 The insects commenced at once to 

 visit and sip nectar from the clover 

 blossoms. In the fall the seeds of 

 all the plants were counted, and 

 those from the plants visited by the 

 bumble bees were to those gathered 

 from the plants which were shielded 

 from all insect visits, as 236 : 5. 

 Thus we see why the first crop of 

 red clover is barren of seed, while 

 the second crop, which comes of 

 bloom visited freely by bumble 

 bees, whose long tongues can reach 

 down to the nectar at the bottom 

 of the long flower tubes is prolific 

 of seed. This fact led to the 

 importation of bumble bees from 

 England to New Zealand and 

 Australia two years since. There 

 were no bumble bees in Australia 



and adjacent islands, and the red 

 clover was found impotent to 

 produce seed. When we have 

 introduced Apis dorsata into our 

 American apiaries, or when we 

 have developed Apis Americana, 

 with a tongue like that of Bombus, 

 seven-sixteenths of an inch long, 

 then we shall be able to raise seed 

 from the first crop of red clover ; 

 as the honey bees, unlike the 

 bumble bees, will be numerous 

 enough early in the season, to 

 perform the necessary fertilization. 

 Alsyke clover, a hybrid between 

 the white and the red, has shorter 

 flower tubes, which makes it a 

 favorite with our honey bees, and 

 so it gives a full crop of seed from 

 the early blossoms. 



In all these cases, we have proof 

 that nature objects to close inter- 

 breeding ; and thus through her 

 laws, the nectar-secreting organs 

 have been evolved, that insects 

 might do the work of cross-fertili- 

 zation. As in the case of animals, 

 the bisexual or dioecious plants have 

 been evolved from the hermaphro- 

 ditic as a higher type ; each sex 

 being independent, more vital force 

 can be expended on the sexual 

 elements, and so the individual is 

 the gainer. 



It is sometimes contended by 

 farmers, that the visits of bees are 

 detrimental to their crops. I have 

 heard farmers say that they had 

 known bees to destroy entirely 

 their crops of buckwheat, by in- 

 juring the blossoms. There is no 

 basis of fact for this statement or 

 opinion. Usually bees visit buck- 

 wheat bloom freely. If for any 



