326 BEES AND BEE-KEEPING. 



is closing, the raspberry frequently fails in developing 

 some, or many, of its drupels; they remain green 

 and shrunken, for hive bees are loth to venture abroad, 

 and wild ones are dying off, or seeking, in the case 

 of the females, winter quarters. Some complain that 

 bees eat fruit, a charge which need not be rebutted ; 

 but it is for the bee-keeper to proclaim that, while 

 they gather nectar for themselves, and also for the 

 benefit of their master, they confer a greater boon 

 on the fruit-grower, for they really give him his crop 

 in return. The flowers of the blackberry (Rubus fruti- 

 cosus) are similar in structure, and the explanation 

 given fully applies to them. 



If we look at a strawberry, which is of a similar 

 type to the foregoing, we find a vast number of 

 (popularly) seeds (really achenia) studding its sur- 

 face. Every one of these possessed a style and 

 stigma, as at s, s, A, Fig. 71, and has had pollen 

 conveyed to it by the action of insects, bees mainly. 

 When the bee settles, she, in her circular walk, rubs 

 from her body on to the stigmas, pollen brought 

 from another flower, as in the raspberry, for the 

 stigmas are receptive before the anthers have begun 

 to dehisce. The fertilisation, as before, determines 

 nutrition to the part, and the flower-stalk, which 

 forms the strawberry, becomes a luscious parenchyma. 

 But if any stigmas remain unpollinated, no develop- 

 ment occurs at that spot, and here the strawberry 

 continues (as at u, B) hard, shrunken, and green, even 

 when the fertilised portion is fully ripe. We must 

 all again and again have seen illustrations of this, 

 from which we learn, that every strawberry requires 



