BEES AS BUILDERS OF FLOWERS 



If you inquire why bee-flowers are so often blue, I shall be 

 compelled to admit that I do not know with certainty. It is 

 a problem which still awaits further study. Some naturalists 

 have said that bees 

 prefer blue to e^'ery 

 other color, while 

 others claim that it is 

 merely an incidental 

 result correlated with 

 the higher specializa- 

 tion of the flower. 

 For example, in the 

 animal kingdom, white 

 cats (if they have blue 

 eyes) are nearly always 

 deaf, but no one knows 

 why. 



Bee-flowers are usu- 

 ally marked with spots 

 or lines called "nectar- 

 guides," which point 

 out the way to the nec- 

 tar. (Fig. 34.) In the 

 snapdragon the pal- 

 ate is yellow; in the 

 pickerel-weed there 

 are two bright-yellow 

 spots on the middle 



lobe of the upper lip; in the turtle-head the wliite corolla has 

 reddish lips. The flower of the hedge-nettle (Stachys ereda) is 

 yellowish white, with the border of the upper lip marked with 

 two purple stripes and the lower lip purple-spotted. The flower 



65 



Fig. 31. Pink-Fringed Polygala. Pobjgala 

 paucifolia 



A bee-flower. The erest, or frintfe, is well showu in the 

 photograph 



