296 AUSTRALIAN BEE LORE AND BEE CULTURE. 



store both pollen and honey. Other insects feed on one or the 

 other or both, but with these it is consumed where gathered — 

 that is, it is consumed on the premises. 



I am not ignorant of the fact that the perceptive organs in 

 insects are extremely acute, especially in social bees, and that 

 they can both recognise colour and form. All bee-keepers know 

 that when young bees take their first flights how cautiously they 

 survey the landmarks surrounding their habitations, and where 

 large numbers of colonies are kept, and where every hive is the 

 same pattern and colour, how necessary it is, when the virgin 

 queens are taking their nuptial flights, to place distinguishing 

 inarks here and there to ensure the safe return of the young queen-, 

 to her home. But that bees are led to flowers by the colour they 

 possess, and that certain bright colours — red, blue, purple, &c. — 

 are more attractive to them than paler tints, such as white, yellow, 

 etc., my experience most certainly contradicts. I know that the 

 highest authorities on the subject have written and stated that it 

 is so, and it may appear something like gross presumption on my 

 part to attempt to refute their statements. No doubt some of 

 them have given the experience of observation, but by far too 

 many have been satisfied by stating I was informed by Mr. So-and- 

 So of certain movements in regard to bees and flowers. 



Sir John Lubbock, in his work on "Bees, Ants, and Wasps," 

 says: "Most botanists are now agreed that insects, and especially 

 bees, have played a very important part in the development of 

 flowers." . . . "In cases of brightly coloured flowers the pollen 

 is carried by the agency of insects." "I thought," he writes, "it 

 would be desirable to prove this, if possible, by actual fact. I 

 brought a bee to some honey which I placed on blue paper, and 

 about 3 feet off I placed a similar quantity of honey on orange 

 ptaper." Why he need to place a siinUar quantity I cannot tell, and 

 why he should have hroiiglit instead of allowing a bee to find it is a 

 problem I cannot solve. Now comes the question — was the bee 

 attracted by the blue paper or the honey food ? I have placed honey 

 in a blue campanula, and many other flowers of both conspicuous 

 and vmconspicuous colours. When food is scarce bees will visit any 

 colour ; but when it is very plentiful they object to take honey 

 already gathered. Last summer, in my garden, I had a scarlet 

 dahlia in bloom. When it first flowered there was not a stamen pre- 

 sent. No bees ever visited it. The plant was afterwards neglected 

 by me, and this neglect caused the stamens to appear, and the 



