. American bee journal. Bee culture; Bees. Fig. 3.—Nectary on mid rib of leaf. .Sonic honey is gathered here also will look at the (fig. 4) it can be readily seen that the bee could collect nectar all the way around the stamen column and never come in contact with it. Such bees would, however, have much pollen ad- hering to their backs. From the open structure of the flowers, it will be seen that a bee would come in contact with the stigmas only when it entered .-i flower which was partly open, and then it would only touch its under sides and not the back, where the cotton pol- l
. American bee journal. Bee culture; Bees. Fig. 3.—Nectary on mid rib of leaf. .Sonic honey is gathered here also will look at the (fig. 4) it can be readily seen that the bee could collect nectar all the way around the stamen column and never come in contact with it. Such bees would, however, have much pollen ad- hering to their backs. From the open structure of the flowers, it will be seen that a bee would come in contact with the stigmas only when it entered .-i flower which was partly open, and then it would only touch its under sides and not the back, where the cotton pol- len is carried. Bumblebees and other large hymenoptera, on entering the open flowers, touch both stigmas and stamens and thus easily effect pollina- tion. It was further found tJ;at cot- ton plants screened in so that honey- bees could not have access to the flowers were perfectly pollinated either by the wind or by the nunif^r- ous small bees and flies which worked within the cage. As self-fertilization takes place to a high degree in cot- ton and as honeybees were seen to collect pollen from the cotton blos- soms only on rare occasions, it ap- pears that, in collecting nectar, honey- bees do not come into close contact with the stamens and pistils, (t seems then that this insect is little respon- sible for cross-pollination in cotton. The cotton honey flow outside of the black land area is so uncertain that beekeepers do not count upon it except as a chance addition to the general honey crop, but in the black land the flow is very dependable. The flow commences about the mid- dle of June and continues periodically until the cotton plants are killed by fi'ost. The fact that the honey i? very light amber and of fine quality makes it an ideal flow to run lor bulk comb honey and one is not far wrong in stating that approximately one-half of this class of honey from Texas is from the cotton plant. The fact that cotton blooms, late in the summer and that, in cotton loca- tions, th
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Keywords: ., bo, bookcentury1800, bookdecade1860, booksubjectbees, bookyear1861
