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EVOLUTION OF ANIMALS 



Part V 



Fig. 30.22. Nectar is produced at the bottom of the flower and as the bees suck 

 it up they come in contact with the pollen. Bees in flowers of Salvia: 1, pollen- 

 covered anther is striking the bee's back; 2, the lower flower is being visited by a 

 bee which carries on its back pollen from a younger flower and is rubbing it off 

 on the deflected stigma. (Courtesy, Kerner and Oliver: The Natural History of 

 Plants. London, Gresham Publishing Co., 1904.) 



Legs. There is some tool connected with pollen or wax on every leg of a 

 worker bee; the rights and lefts match, are mirror images. As bees gather 

 Jiectar from the flowers they also collect pollen that clings to the hairs on their 

 ^yes, legs and bodies. Workers must keep combing and brushing and the tools 

 for this are built into their bodies. The eyebrush is a set of bristles on the first 

 leg and just below it is the antenna-comb, a circular comb with a movable 

 flap (Fig. 30.21). The bee raises its leg and draws the antenna through the 

 comb while the flap holds it in place. A honeybee brushes an eye with a 

 pollen brush as a cat curves her paw over one ear. 



On each middle leg there is another pollen-brush and a wax-pick with 

 which the bee plucks scales of wax from the under surface of the abdomen, 

 and prys balls of pollen out of the pollen baskets. When a bee returns from a 

 pollen trip, its hind legs hang straight with the loads of pollen in the baskets 

 that bulge out like green and yellow saddle bags. The pollen combs on the 

 inner surfaces of the tarsi serve to comb out the pollen entangled on the hairs 

 of the body and transfer it to the pollen basket on the opposite leg. The tibia 

 ends in a row of spines, the pecten (comb). The pecten of one leg is scraped 

 across the pollen comb of the other and the pollen thus collected is packed 

 into the pollen basket. 



