The Bennington evening banner. (Bennington, Vt.) 19??-1961, 1913-07-12
WAY FLOWERS YIELD HONEY
J. E. Crane of Middlebury Explains
Plant Life.

liAC wow AAhblohu dlONSl oNNo
man, is by j. E. Crane of Middle
bury, one of the State inspectors of
bees and an authority on the subject
and is entitled why Do Flowers
Yield Honey?"
Why do the flowers yield honey?
To answer this question we must go
far back beyond the law of Moses,
to the beginning, when the morn
ing stars sang together" and the law
was proclaimed forbidding the mar
riage OF near relations among all
animal and plant life But are there
sexes among plants and flowers?
Most assuredly, the stamens answer
ing for the male and the pistil for
the female, and the vital pollen must
pass from one to the other or there
can be no new life.
And do plants and flowers marry?
Most certainly and there are as
many curious marriage customs
among the flowers as in the human
family. We know one couple would
be married with much style and cere
mony, while another would be mar
ried only in church, while others
would have a simple wedding at
home, while still others, caring little
for ceremony, would go to a justice
of the peace and get hitched up"
as they say. And So among the
flowers One kind would be married
by the humble bee with all his fuss
and feathers, while others would
have moth in the soft twilight
hours Another would have no 9th
er than a capri wasp, while many
other plants, and they are among
our best families, would have the
honey bees.
Still other plants, and they are
many, care nothing for insects, but
depend on the wind to watt the light
dry pollen from tree to tree or plant
to plant. These last are known to
botanists by a very big name that in
plain English means lovers of the
wind. These furnish no money, for
the wind is a free agent, and takes
no fees. Let me illustrate. Take
our northern nut-bearing trees, the
hickory, for instance One tree will
in spring time throw out its stamens
first loaded with pollen, while its
neighbor will throw out its pistis
first, or at the same time. The wind
carries the dry pollen to the last
and it becomes fertile, while in
few days the order is reversed, ana
both trees produce nuts of double
parentage.
The plants that depend on insects
for carrying their pollen from flow
er to flower have pollen that is damp
or glutinous, and is i'll adapted to
being carried by the wind, and are
known by another big scientific
name that means lovers of insects"
So insects become the marriage
priests of flowers. But they can not
work for nothing and board them
selves, and so this class of flowers
have a superabundance of pollen.
and also provide nectar as a we'd
ding fee to offer the insect that
performs the ceremony so to speak
The insects of which the common
honey bee is the most important. go
about their work in the most com.
mon place, peculiar way, little dream
ing of the immense value they are
in the cross fertilization of plants,
thus retaining or increasing their
vigor.
Darwin, the great naturalist, when
he saw the infinite pains taken by
the author of nature to secure cross
fertilization, made some very extern
sive and expensive experiments,
that conclusiyely proved that in
most cases inbreeding would cause
plants to rapidly deteriorate in size
and productiveness, some of them
becoming almost barren in a few
generations.
AS already stated, the honey bee
is the most valuable insect for this
purpose, for they visit very large
number of our most valuable plants.
as the apple, pear, plum, peach,
cherry, strawberries, raspberries,
cranberries, the citrus fruits, the
melon and squash families, as well
as the clovers and others. II peach.
es or apricots are to be produced
under glass, as in England. a hive
of bees must be placed in the house
when the trees bloom, or no fruit
Thousands of hives of bees are
used every year around the larger
cities of New England in the produc.
ton of early cucumbers under glass.
Recently it has been discovered how
important they are in producing
cranberries.
l had in my garden some years
ago Japanese plum that for sever
al years refused to give me any
fruit but few imperfect specimens.
Suspecung the cause, / secured
when next in bloom, a branch of an
other variety of the same species of
plum and tied it into this hitherto
barren tree, when the sun came out
and the bees flew, doing their need.
ful work, and when again the golden
autums days came round that tree
was loaded with a most bountiful
crop OF beautiful Satsuma plums.
The production of dates is inter.
esting. The male or staminate bios.
SONS are borne on one tree, while
the female or pistilate blossoms are
borne on other trees. As trees bear.
Ing staminate flowers produce no
iruit TO set one of each kind would
make II Improbable, so but one