KET. H. E. PEEL — BEES AND BEE-KEEPING. 195 



conviction founded on long and most accurate study — that jS^ature 

 in the most emphatic manner tells us, in plants and flowers, as well 

 as in live stock, that she abhors perpetual self-fertilisation. 

 Throughout the great family of orchids, including 432 genera and 

 probably 6,000 species, the act of fertilisation by the conveying of 

 the pollen from the anther of the male organ to the stigma of the 

 female is almost universally left to insects. In this work of fertili- 

 sation the bee takes his share amongst other insects, and more than 

 his share, for in some cases the bee is indispensable for the fertili- 

 sation of plants. 



In jS^ew Zealand, before the introduction of the bee, the clover 

 would not seed. The common red clover, according to Mr. Darwin's 

 observations, is \'isited by the humble-bee alone, its greater length 

 of proboscis enabling it alone to probe the depths of the tubes of its 

 corolla. The same author mentions in his ' Origin of Species ' that 

 he has repeatedly seen, but only in the autumn, many hive-bees 

 sucking the flowers through holes which have been bitten in the 

 base of the tube by humble-bees. It is asserted that when the red 

 clover has been mown, the flowers of the second crop are somewhat 

 smaller, and these are visited by the hive-bees. The Lig^^^ian bee 

 is said to be able to reach and suck the nectar of the clover. In 

 the * Bee Journal ' of March 1st, 1877 — and let me recommend this 

 journal to all who wish for information on bees and bee-keeping — 

 I find a letter from Mr. Darwin transcribed from the ' Gardeners' 

 Chronicle,' in which he calls attention to the scarcity of holly- 

 berries throughout the country generally in the early part of that 

 year, adding that he had received several letters from correspon- 

 dents, asking him if he could account for the failure of the seed- 

 crop of clover, although the clover plants themselves looked 

 vigorous and healthy. The holly, Mr. Darwin remarks, is a 

 dioecious plant. During forty years in which he had closely ob- 

 served its flowers, he had never found an hermaphrodite. Bees, he 

 says, are the chief transporters of pollen from the male to the 

 female tree, and the latter will produce few berries if bees are 

 scarce. He mentions a case in which he watched the fertilisation 

 of a female tree, sixty yards distant from the nearest male tree, 

 during a period of days in which the wind had invariably set from 

 the female towards the male tree, and in which, therefore, the 

 pollen from the male tree could not have been conveyed to the 

 female by the wind, but must have been carried by the bees. He 

 concludes his letter by saying that he believes the reason why 

 English people could not decorate their homes with the scarlet 

 berries of the holly for the Christmas of 1876 was because bees 

 ■were so rare in the spring of that year ; and Mr. Abbott, the 

 editor of the ' Bee Journal,' clenches his remarks and confirms his 

 belief by reminding his readers how unpropitious for bees was the 

 summer of 1875. The breeding of bees at the close of that summer 

 had ceased some months before they became inactive, and as a 

 consequence many stocks of bees had become individually too aged 

 to withstand the winter and to furnish the requisite supply of 



