Word: alfalfa
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...romance between bees and flowers is not always gentle. Alfalfa flowers, for instance, can be brutal. Last week Dr. Ephraim Hixson of the University of Nebraska was trying to make alfalfa flowers kinder to bees. His object, of course, was more alfalfa seed...
...pistil of an alfalfa flower is a strong spring held in tension by two "keel petals." When the bee alights on the petals, the pistil snaps up and out. This process ensures cross-fertilization by showering the bee with pollen and spanking other pollen loose from the bee's body...
...rough, and the snap of the pistil knocks the bee for a loop. Tough wild bees will take this punishment. Gently bred tame bees will not. They sneak up on the flower and steal its nectar stealthily without springing the pistil. The flower thus remains unfertilized and bears no alfalfa seed...
...attractive place to live. But for the test pilots like Chuck, who do not have to live on the post, it is not too bad. The mountain-ringed desert, with its mourning Joshua trees, has a kind of austere beauty. On its broad plain are little oases - alfalfa farms kept green by diesel-pumped water. There is hunting and riding. When these rural pleasures pall, Los Angeles is only 70 miles away (eleven minutes as the jet flies...
Then the Foxes built up the thinned-down Rupert with oats, alfalfa, linseed and soybean meal, vitamin D, wheat germ oil, etc. Rupert seemed in tiptop condition, but he still sired no calves...