VII
THE FERTILIZATION OF THE FLOWER
As a preparation for this work, let the children notice the flower-dust or pollen that shakes out of the flowers or is seen clinging to the anthers.
Bee—Showing Pollen-Basket
The child presently discovers where the pollen comes from. It is hidden in the anthers. He can hunt in all the flowers to find these little pollen-boxes, some of which, as in the goldenrods, are so small that he will have hard work to find them, even though they shed such clouds of pollen. He can notice the different kinds of stamens, see how some have long stems or filaments, others short ones, others again none at all. The filament is of no other use than to hold up the anther. The anther with its pollen is the important thing; so there may be useful stamens with no filaments, but never useful stamens with no anthers.
The amount of pollen in the flowers is always astonishing and interesting. Why should there be so much?
That the bee gathers honey from the blossoms is one of the earliest things the child learns. Just whereabouts in the flower-cup, and just how the bee finds this honey, how it carries it home, where and how and why it stores it in the hive, is one of the most fascinating of stories, as good as a fairy tale. In connection with this comes very naturally the story of the bees and the pollen. The child will be delighted to learn that the bees collect pollen as well as honey; that the honey bees and bumble-bees have baskets on their legs on purpose to carry it home; that they knead it up with honey and make it into what is known as bee-bread.
We seldom see bee-bread these days, as patent hives furnish all the honey found in city stores and no bee-bread is sold. In remote country places, however, where the honey is removed en masse from the hive, there will be plenty of bee-bread to give piquancy to the children's bread and honey. Moreover, where bees are kept, the bee-keeper can usually be persuaded to take out a little bee-bread for the children to see and taste; for it is always present no matter what the kind of hive used, though it is not always easily obtainable, for where their household arrangements permit, the bees generally prefer to store it in the lower chambers away from the honey. Thus the flower supplies large quantities of food for the bees and for us, and long ago, before America was discovered and before cane-sugar came into use, the people depended upon honey for their sweetening.