Relation of Bees to Fkttit Culture. 261 



"wliich live among their flowers, which enter their corollas, 

 and which, moving their wings, excliange with them the 

 benetits of which nature alone knows the value and has 

 directed the reciprocity. " 



" Is not the presence of honey and its secretion at the time 

 of the full bloom of the flower among the means and mys- 

 teries which the Author of nature has put in operation to 

 assure his immutable designs ? Does not the honey attract 

 wandering tribes of buzzing insects, whose bodies, armed 

 with a thousand brushes, scatter the pollen over all parts of 

 the flower and thus accomplish, while they are gathering 

 booty on their own account, a great work of reproduction. " 



" They (the insects) are the veritable mediators in the 

 marriao-e of flowers. " 



" What would become of the dioecious plants whose 

 pollen, like that of the willows, cannot be borne on the wind, 

 if the legions of insects which come forth with the spring- 

 time flowers did not lend the aid of their wings and bust- 

 ling activity V 



Does extriacting the honey from the blossom injure the 

 quality of the fruit or impair the value of forage plants ? 

 I believe, there are many that would answer yes. Let us 

 first inquire a little into the nature of this nectar. The 

 learned tell us that it is a liquid sweet composed largely of 

 two substances, very similar in character to what is kno^vn 

 as grape and cane sugar. It also contains a little gum, 

 wax, an aromatic principle and, according to some authors, 

 a trace of what appears to be acetic acid. Yet we find that 

 no two plants produce precisely the same quality of honey. 

 There are but few persons who do not know the difference 



