214 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



Apr. 1 



may often be found intact, they are frequent- 

 ly punctured by bees. August 10 I examin- 

 ed a large number of flowers, but none of 

 the nectaries were perforated, and they were 

 visited in the legitimate way by Bombus con- 

 similis, which made from seven to twelve 

 visits per minute. The thorax of the bee 

 was plentifully covered wrth pollen. From 

 August 23 to 27 I found hundreds of the 

 flowers perforated, and both bumble-bees 

 and honey-bees stealing the nectar. A hon- 

 ey-bee was watched during 25 successive 

 visits, and in no instance did it make even a 

 pretense of visiting the flower in the normal 

 way; but in every case it swung itself be- 

 neath it, got astride the spur, and began 

 sucking the nectar. The number of visits 

 per minute was about ten. Both the honey- 

 bee and Bombus terricola were observed in 

 the act of puncturing the nectary. The max- 

 illae alone were employed, and were moved 

 slowly back and forth for the purpose of 

 piercing the tissue. The perforation is usu- 

 ally 3—4 mm. from the end of the spur, which 

 is 10—11 mm. long. Sometimes there is one, 

 sometimes several openings, or there may 

 be a slit 3 ram. long. 



If, after the manner of certain plants fa- 

 mous in myth and story, the Impatiens (fitly 

 in this respect called "touch-me-not ") could 

 speak, what a protest it would utter! For 

 unknown centuries it has been building up 

 its flower edifices only at last to find its work 

 in danger of being rendered worse than use- 

 less by a change in the habits of its bee vis- 

 itors. It should, however, also be stated that 

 the flowers are frequently visited by hum- 

 ming-birds, and I have also seen another 

 smaller species of bee enler the flower in 

 search of pollen. Small beetles and spiders 

 occasionally seek shelter in the sac, and vari- 

 ous flies are attracted to the outside by the 

 bright colors. 



The columbines in my garden secrete nec- 

 tar very plentifully. If a flower of the white 

 variety be held so the light will shine through 

 its translucent tissue, the nectar may be seen 

 filling a tenth of an inch of the hollow spurs 

 or nectaries. Both the purple and white 

 varieties are punctured by oees. Mueller 

 observed a bumble-bee, after licking the 

 calyx in a fruitless endeavor to obtain the 

 honey, bite a hole in the spur; and afterward 

 it punctured the flowers visited, without any 

 preliminary delay. I have observed three 

 distinct incisions, one above the other, on a 

 petal of this plant. The first was over half 

 an inch from the tip of the spur, well up on 

 the expanded part of the tube; the second 

 was much lower down, and the third still 

 nearer the tip. Apparently the upper punc- 

 ture was too far distant to permit the tongue 

 ■of the bee reaching the nectar; and to recti- 

 fy this mistake the other holes were made 

 1 jwer down. 



The flowers of the scarlet runner are very 

 attractive to bees. August 14, in my garden 

 the vines were in full bloom and were a blaze 

 of glory. Honey-bees and bumble-bees were 

 constantly coming and going, but not one of 

 them entered the flower in the normal way. 



There was a hole on the under side of every 

 nectary; and, what was a little singular, they 

 were all on the left-hand side. The bees 

 went directly to these holes, out of which 

 they easily sucked the nectar. More than 

 300 species of flowers are known in which 

 bees bite holes, and which they rob of their 

 nectar, and several of these often fail to pro- 

 duce seed. Both the mandibles and maxillae 

 are used for this purpose — the former for 

 biting, the latter for piercing. If there are 

 two small punctures side by side, they were 

 made by tne mandibles; but if a narrow slit, 

 by the maxillae. A few of the more common 

 forms robbed by bees, besides those al- 

 ready mentioned, are the red clover, locust, 

 Dicentra corydalis, dead nettle, larkspur, ac- 

 onite, and vetch. 



We are now in a position to answer Dr. 

 Miller's question. Bees bite holes in many 

 buds because the petals are united by their 

 edges into tubes or bells, and they can not 

 gain access to the interior of the flower in 

 any other way. Their object is to find nectar 

 before the flower opens. But in the rose all 

 the petals are separate and distinct, and es- 

 sentially alike. There is no occasion to 

 puncture them. The bee gains an entrance 

 to the flower by pushing its way between 

 the petals of the growing bud. It is, no 

 doubt, looking for nectar. Of course it does 

 not then know that roses are nectarless; for 

 if it is early in the season it has never before 

 seen a rose. But bees very quickly learn 

 from experience that the roses contain only 

 pollen, and ever after they remember it. 

 The ability of the bee to learn from experi- 

 ence is well illustrated by their behavior 

 toward buckwheat blossoms, on which they 

 work in the morning but not in the after- 

 noon. So, too, they do not visit the gaudy, 

 nectarless exotics of cultivation, for they 

 have learned from experience that their time 

 would be wasted. The mental attributes of 

 the honey-bee are far too high to permit its 

 flying in a mechanical way indefinitely to a 

 flower from which it gains no advantage. 



Waldoboro, Maine. 



[The honey-bee is not provided with cut- 

 ting-jaws like the wasp and beetles. At one 

 time it was supposed that honey-bees could 

 cut through flower-tubes; but some of our 

 best authorities doubt this. The holes found 

 near the nectaries of the flowers could easily 

 be made by other insects provided with cut- 

 ting-jaws. Unless you actually saw honey- 

 bees do all of the cutting from start to finish 

 on the touch-me-not, we should be inclined 

 to the belief that other insects had already 

 been there before, started the job, or made 

 a minute hole which honey-bees, coming on 

 later, could enlarge. We have proved this 

 was the case when the charge was made 

 that bees punctured grapes. We found that 

 a small bird started the holes, and that, later 

 on, bees came on and made the holes larger. 

 In the case of the touch me- not, "small bee- 

 tles," and "spiders," both provided with 

 cutting-jaws, and both of which you found 

 on the flowers that were cut, might be the 

 real culprits. — Ed.] 



