Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 178, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 July 1914 — FRUIT FERTILIZED BY BEES [ARTICLE]

FRUIT FERTILIZED BY BEES

Colored, Fragrant Petals of Blossom Aro Advertising Board Telling Where Honey Is Located. (By FRANCIS JAEGER, Minnesota Agricultural College.) If there were no bees, fruit trees and other plants could not produce fruit. Apple, plum, cucumber, clover, alsike, alfalfa are fertilized by bees. Honey is the bait with which the bee is induced to perform this task. The colored, fragrant petals of the blossom are the advertising signboard telling the bee where the honey may be found. If the bldssom is to “set fruit,” the bee with its fuzzy body must brush some of the yellow dust called pollen from the male organs or antlers • of the blossom, and flying away to another blossom, deposit this pollen on the female organ called the stigma. The blossoms are so arranged that to get at the honey the bee must first brush, with its pollen-covered body, against the stigma, thus completing the pollination. As soon as it has performed this duty, it may draw a check for the work in the form of a drop of honey at the bottdm of the blossom. While drawing this pay, the bee is involuntarily covered with pollen again and made ready, to proceed to the next blossom and repeat the process. X