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Browse the 1966 Encyclopaedia of New Zealand
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Graphic: An Encyclopaedia of New Zealand 1966.

Warning

This information was published in 1966 in An Encyclopaedia of New Zealand, edited by A. H. McLintock. It has not been corrected and will not be updated.

Up-to-date information can be found elsewhere in Te Ara.

Contents


BEES, BUMBLE

Among the pasture crops of New Zealand are red clover and lucerne which are self-sterile because their flower structure requires certain types of insects to pollinate them. Although honey bees had been introduced in 1839, red clover did not set seed. But in 1885 and 1905 the bumble bee was introduced and proved so successful a pollinator that soon there was seed for export. Today there are four species in the South Island but little is known of their habits and ecology.

Co-creator

McLintock, Alexander Hare