270 



AUSTRALIAN BEE LORE AND BEE CULTURE. 



first product the blossom yields, ev«n before it secretes its nectar 

 (honey,). In their eagerness to be first on the foraging ground, 

 they leave home at about sunrise. If they have selected an orange 

 to gather their stores from, they will keep upon orange or some 

 ■other member of the citrus tribe during the whole of that pere- 

 grination. Tumbling about in the cup of the flower amongst the 

 anthers, they gather up in their fur numberless grains of these 

 life cells, pollen grains. Head, thorax, abdomen are all more or 

 less dusted with it. Whilst gathering it, and whilst on the wing 

 from flower to flower, and tree to tree, they are busily engaged 

 in packing it in the pollen baskets that are situated in the upper 

 part of the hinder legs. As the day warms, the blossoms unfurl; 

 the central whorls develop, and the stigma becomes receptive. The 



>»i st 



Bee in the act of fertilising. 



a Anther celL 

 ac Aborted CelL 



a Oonneftive. 

 hi Hinge of filament. 

 (•« Calyx. 

 St Style. 



I Labium. 

 ng Nectar erland. 



s Stiff attaeliment of fila- 

 ment. 



bee, eager in her duties to supply her home with abundance of 

 food, both for the young brood and winter storage, commences 

 her search for honey. In the early morning there is little or no 

 nectar secreted ; but as the warmth increases so the flow of honey 

 advances. Anxius to fill her honey-sac whilst gathering the pollen 

 she enters the blossoms where she will find the greatest abundance 

 of her favourite winter storage, and thrusts her tongue down into 

 the nectaries of the blooms. To get at the honey more readily 

 she lies on the top of the essential organs, and brushes to and fro 

 on the stigma. Whilst thus engaged, the fur on the various parts 

 of her body retains pollen grain ; those on her breast come in con- 

 tact with the stigmas of the flowers. Having commenced working 

 on an orange for pollen she will not go to an apple or aught else 

 for her honey. Citrus fruits supplied the pollen, citrus fruits must 

 provide the honey. Why ? Because Nature has endowed the bee 

 with that intelligence — there is no other word so applicable — to 

 know if she were to take the pollen of an orange to the stigma 

 of an apple, as far as fructification was oonoerned, her labour 

 would be useless. . Pollen from one species of the vegetable king- 

 dom can seldom be used successfully, even by artificial means, to 



