298 AUSTRALIAN BEE LORE AND BEE CULTURE. 



white and the other somewhat of an orange tint. At the same 

 time, in the district where I live there were roses, marigolds, arum 

 lilies, and other attractive flowers in full bloom, but few bees were 

 visiting them. The pollen was coming in from the willows and 

 peach trees ; there was also honey coming in from the latter. The 

 flowers (catkins) on the willows are so inconspicuous that a large 

 number of people are ignorant of the fact that they are phanero- 

 gamic ; yet they were as attractive to the bees as the gaudy peach, 

 trees. During the same spring, and at about the same time, I 

 visited the Botanical Gardens, and the most attractive beds of flow- 

 ers then in bloom were the English daisies, pansies, anemones, and 

 the turban ranunculus. Nothing in the Gardens were more showy 

 than the two latter, yet no bee visited them. Near thesie was a 

 shrub (Burns sempervirens), in which there was a constant hum 

 from the bees. What was the cause ? Hidden among the dark green 

 foliage there were hundreds of small greenish flowers, supplying 

 abundance of food. If colour had been the attractive agent, bees 

 would never have discovered their food in the shrub, and they 

 would have sought the showy beds of anemones, &c., in vain; they 

 were double, and therefore there was no pollen food. But who will 

 dare to say the attractive colour was absent ? A short time after- 

 wards I saw the hougdinvilleax aglow with their showy bracts ; they 

 could be seen hundreds of yards away. At the same time the pitto- 

 sporums were in flower. These latter were so inconspicuous that 

 before they could be detected you need stand directly under them. 

 I visited both — the bougainvilleas and the pittosporum ; in the for- 

 mer there was not a bee to be seen, notwithstanding their fiery glow, 

 whilst in the latter there was a sound as if a swarm of bees had 

 taken possession of it." 



Mr. Baker, of the Technological Museum, informed me that 

 he observed a specimen of Paiuir sanihticifoliiis swarming with bees, 

 although it bears a small, very inconspicuous flower. A fence 

 divided it from an enclosure of brightly-coloured garden flowers, 

 yet these were passed over unheeded. Why did the bees neglect 

 the garden flowers ? Because the yield of food was not equal to that 

 in the Panax satnhurif alius. In none of the cases I have named 

 were the bees attracted by the colours, but by what they could get 

 in the form of food. 



Many years ago, when in Cooma, I had a bed of turnips in 

 flower that from daylight to dark were besieged by bees. Suddenly 

 the bees forsook them. I found the cause to be that a small pad- 



