POLLINATION OF FLOWERS 
667 
POLLED IX THE COMBS AND SECTION BOXES. 
When pollen or meal is brought into the 
hive, it is usually packed in cells as near 
the brood as possible. If the hives are 
opened in spring, pollen is found scattered 
more or less thru all the brood-combs; but 
the two outside combs on each side of the 
hive are often a solid. mass of pollen. 
Should there be a few stormy days the 
supply will disappear with almost unac¬ 
countable rapidity, so large is the demand 
for brood-rearing. As soon as it is wholly 
consumed brood-rearing must stop, altho 
the queen may continue to lay eggs. It is 
most important, then, that there should be 
an ample stock of pollen during unfavor¬ 
able weather, in order that strong colonies 
may be obtained. 
Complaint has been made by those who 
use shallow hives that pollen is sometimes 
stored in the sections. It has been claimed 
that this can be prevented by placing a 
comb of pollen in the brood-chamber, tho 
this was questioned by C. C. Miller. But this 
practice will usually induce the storage of 
more pollen below the sections, even if it 
does not keep them Avholly free from it. In 
hives with the brood-nest as deep as the 
Langstroth, it is very seldom that pollen 
will be found in the sections. It is in hives 
having less depth that there is danger. 
Strips of perforated zinc in the slatted 
honey-board will largely prevent the stor¬ 
age of pollen in the sections, if there is a 
large brood-chamber. But if the brood- 
chamber is much contracted the bees will 
put pollen where they please, zinc or no 
zinc. 
POLLINATION OF FLOWERS.— 
Plants may be divided into two great series, 
the seedless, or lower plants; and the seed- 
plants, or higher plants. The seedless plants 
include the seaweeds, fungi, mosses, and 
ferns; the seed-plants comprise the coni¬ 
fers and the cycads (Gymnosperms) and 
the plants with flowers (Angiosperms). 
The possibility of dividing the plant world 
into two sub-kingdoms was recognized over 
150 years ago by the Swedish botanist Lin¬ 
naeus who called the lower plants Crypto¬ 
gams, or flowerless plants: and the higher 
plants Phanerogams, or flowering plants. 
The number of described species in each 
of these great groups is approximately as 
follows: 
SEEDLESS PLANTS. 
Seaweeds or Algae. 15,460 
Fungi (higher forms) .• • 63,700 
Liverworts and mosses or 
Bryophytes . 16,600 
Fernworts or Pteridopliytes: 
Ferns . ••.... 5,940 
Horsetails . 20 
Club-mosses . ••.... 900 
SEED-PLANTS. 
Conifers and cycads or Gymno¬ 
sperms . 450 
Flowering plants or Angiosperms.. 132,000 
THE ORIGIN OP SEX. 
Plant life had its origin in the ocean 
many millions of years ago. The first 
plants were miscroscopic, one-celled forms, 
without sex, multiplying by self-division 
or fission. The simplest plants are today 
sexless, and still multiply wholly by re¬ 
peated division into two equal parts, as in 
the blue algae, the desmids, diatoms, and 
bacteria. So rapidly does fission take place 
that, if conditions permitted, they would 
quickly pack the ocean itself. Gradually 
thru the long ages of primeval time the sea¬ 
weeds were developed. In the different 
groups of seaweeds sex was evolved inde¬ 
pendently again and again. Evidently for 
the- development of plants multiplication 
without sex was not sufficient. Stripped of 
all the accessories, which attend it in the 
flowering plants, sex consists only of the 
union of two cells of unequal size, the 
smaller being known as the male cell or 
sperm, and the larger as the female cell 
or egg. The sperms and eggs leave the 
organs in which they are formed, and swim 
about freely in the water by means of 
cilia, or whip-like hairs, until they meet 
and unite.- From the cell or spore arising 
from this union, called a zygote, there 
grows after a period of rest a new plant. 
The development of sex was the first step 
in the evolution of flowers. 
But vegetative reproduction was not re¬ 
placed by sexual reproduction: it still con¬ 
tinues to exist and probably more indi¬ 
viduals are produced by sexless methods 
than by sex. Reproduction by spores, or 
single cells capable of growing into new in¬ 
dividuals, which is a simple form of bud- 
