17 



VALUE OF BEES. 



Bees may safely be reckoned as one of our nation's most 

 valuable assets. It is not the honey they produce that is 

 their chief value, but the fact that tliey are necessary and 

 useful for the reproduction of a very great many of our 

 plants. This is very commonly known but is so interest- 

 ing that it will bear repetition. Before mentioning some of 

 the cases in which the visits of bees are necessary to flowers 

 it will be quite necessary to say something about the man- 

 ners (also well known) in which so-called sjjecialized flow- 

 ers are fertilized. 







PEAR BLOSSOM 



S/iou-iiit; i/w parts of J pi'rUii /lozrrr. 



I have taken as an illustration of a perfect flower, a pear 

 blossom. Notice particularly tlie stamens and pistil; the 



