THE aMERICSN mmW JQlJRKSlLr. 



227 



The honey and pollen which the bees 

 take from the Howers, is the pay which 

 the flowers give to the bees for services 

 rendered, and the flowers are not in- 

 jured by removinf? that which they 

 gladly give. In fact, the bright color 

 of the flower, and the nectar in its bo- 

 som are the allurements which it throws 

 out to the busy bee to pay it a visit, 

 and do the plant a service thereby. It 

 has been truly said, " There is a protest 

 made In nature, for some profound, 

 perhaps inscrutable reason, against con- 

 tinuous in-breeding, which applies no 



Wax Segments of the Bee. 



less to plants than to animals, to flow- 

 ers than to bees. " 



To make my point clear, let me brief- 

 ly call your attention to the structure 

 of a flower, and the law of the perpetu- 

 ation of plant and animal organism. 

 A plant flowers, of course, that it may 

 produce fruit and seed, but the flower 

 will never mature into fruit unless cer- 

 tain laws are complied with, namely: 

 The male element of the flower must 

 be brought in contact with its comple- 

 ment, the female. A flower is com- 

 posed of two sets of organs, the essen- 

 tial and non-essential. 



The outside of an ideal flower is com- 

 posed of two rows or whorls of modi- 

 fied leaves. The outer is called the 

 calyx and the inner the corolla, and 

 these make up the non-esseutial organs, 

 or floral envelopes. The essential or- 

 gans are of two kinds also, placed one 

 above and within the other. They are 

 called stamens, or fertilizing organs ; 

 and pistils, the organs to be fertiilized. 

 We will need to look a little more 

 closely into their construction. On the 

 top of the stamens of the flowers there 

 is a little organ called an anther. This 

 is filled with fine dust which is named 

 pollen or "fertilizing dust." The pis- 

 til is composed of three parts, two of 

 which are very important, and we must 

 remember their names. They are called 

 ovary and stigma. The middle and 

 less important one is called the style. 

 The stigma on the tip or some other 

 portion of the style, is composed of 

 loose tissue, and "is not covered, like 

 the rest of the plant, with skin, or epi- 

 dermis. The ovary is a hollow case, 

 or young pod containing rudimentary 

 seeds called ovules. Now, these ovules 

 contain the embryo of the future fruit 

 and plant, but they will never mature 

 unless they come in contact with some 

 of the pollen dust of the anther found 

 on top of the stamens of this or some 

 other flower of the same kind. 



The moment the pollen touches the 

 stigma, if the stigma is at the proper 



stage of development and in a recep- 

 tive condition, it begins to grow and 

 form what is known as the "pollen 

 tube. " This tube reaches down through 

 the style, and in some inscrutable way 

 finds and enters the ovule, reaching the 

 embryo sack, and causing the germ 

 there to form into a cell. Thus the 

 new plant-life begins. You say, "what 

 has all this to do with bees? and what 

 have bees to do with this wonderful 

 and intricate process? Simply this 

 and nothing more: They aid the plant 

 by bringing the pollen to the stigma. 



They not only bring pollen, but they 

 bring it from another plant, and thus 

 avoid in-breeding which would be inju- 

 rious to the future plant and fruit. It 

 has been demonstrated that many plants 

 are so constructed as to prevent the 

 pollen of their own stamen from com- 

 ing in contact with their own stigma. 

 At the same time the flower is so ar- 

 ranged that a bee cannot visit it and 

 secure its nectar, without bringing 

 some of the pollen of another plant of 

 the same kind to its own stigma. As 

 it leaves, the bee takes with it pollen 

 from this flower to fall upon the stigma 

 of the flower next visited. Thus it is 

 the plant aids the bee and the bee the 

 plant, and so the chain of nature is 

 complete. Bees never go from one 

 kind of flower to another, but always 

 to one of the same kind. They go from 



Honey and Propolis. 



Honey— the next product which we 

 are to examine. It is the nectar of 

 flowers gathered and stored in the comb 

 where it is subject to a ripening and 

 curing process by the bees. That it 

 passes through some change and re- 

 ceives some secretions from the bee, 

 after it is taken from the flowers, while 

 in the honey-sac, and in the comb he- 

 fore it is sealed over, I have no dou'it ; 

 but just what these changes are, and 

 the exact nature of the secretion I h to 

 not able to tell. There are many theo- 



Egg-Tubes and Ovaries of Queen. 



clover head to clover head, and never 

 from clover head to any other kind of 

 flower. 



You, no doubt, have noticed how 

 imperfect the apples are in some years. 

 This is caused by cold weather during 

 the fruit bloom which prevents the bees 

 from visiting the blossoms sufliclently 

 to secure their perfect fertilization. 

 An apple is the result of the fertiliza- 

 tion of five pistils ; and if any of these 

 fail to be fertilized, it is sure to be im- 

 perfect. 



So you now see we need the bees in 

 order to raise perfect fruit— in fact in 

 many cases, any fruit at all. There 

 was no red clover in Australia, and 

 they could not raise seed there until 

 they imported nests of bumble-bees to 

 fertilize the clover. Italian bees would 

 have answered the same purpose. 







Sectional View of Bee-Sting. 



ries and speculations about this, but I 

 have not the time nor disposition to ex- 

 amine them now. Let me say, howev- 

 er, while I am on this subject, that you 

 cannot feed bees sugar syrup and have 

 them make honey out of it. Neither 

 has any one been able to make comb, 

 and fill it by machinery with glucose, 

 and sell it for honey. This has never 

 been done, the popular yarns to the 

 contrary notwithstanding. " Mark 

 this, ■' if you please. 



Propolis, from "pro" before, and 

 "polls, " a city , is so called because the 

 bees use it for stopping the holes in the 

 hive, to protect their home or city. It 

 is placed, as it were, before the city for 

 a wall of protection. In other words, 

 it is the bee's glue, or cement, with 

 which it stops every crack and crevice 

 in its hive. In fact, in time it gives 

 the entire inside of the hive a coat of 

 this propolis. It is a kind of resinous 

 substance which the bees gather from 

 various sources. They use it not only 

 to stop the cracks of the hive, but to 

 cover up any objectionable or offensive 

 substance which may get into t!ieir 

 hives. Drop a snail into the hive, and 

 not being able to remove it, they will 

 stick it fast to the bottom of the liive, 

 and then cover it entirely with propolis. 



They also put a thin coating of this 

 propolis over the entire surface of all 

 the sealed honey that is left in the hive 

 over winter, or late in the fall. This 



