AUGUST 1, 1913 



apiary, in a location where the bees were 

 constantly flying over them. I repeatedly 

 examined the flowers; but during many 

 weeks not a single bee did I observe on 

 them. Why was this? Put a honeybee on 

 a sweet-pea blossom and you will at once 

 see that it is neither large enough nor strong 

 enough to depress the keel, and that, con- 

 sequently, it can not obtain the nectar. 



A'either can any of our Maine bumble- 

 bees depress the keel. One day in Septem- 

 ber I saw a large female bumblebee {Bom- 

 bus fervidus) fly to the flowers, but she did 

 not even make a pretense of trying to ob- 

 tain the nectar in the legitimate way. In- 

 stead she stood sidewise on one of the wing 

 petals, and, thrusting her tongue into a 

 crevice between the standard and one of 

 the wings, she succeeded in reaching the 

 nectar. I watched her while she made 

 twenty visits, and in every instance she 

 obtained the nectar by robbing the flowers. 

 Subsequently she made many additional 

 visits. On another day I saw a worker of 

 Bombus consimilis obtain the nectar in the 

 same manner. 



Until the summer of 1912 I did not sup- 

 pose that there was a single species of our 

 native bees which could properly pollinate 

 the flowers. But on September 15 and 22 

 a female leaf -cutting bee {Megachile lati- 

 manus), a large and powerful insect, put 

 in an aj^pearance. She easily depressed the 

 keel, thrust her tongue beneath the stan- 

 dard into the staminal tube, and sucked the 

 nectar for a long time. The stigma pro- 

 jected far out of the apex of tiie keel, 

 touching the brush of hairs on the under 

 side of the bee's body. This brush was 

 loaded with pollen. After she had finished 

 sucking she rested on the flower for several 

 minutes, and permitted me to stroke her 

 witli my finger. 



But it will, perhaps, be asked, '" How do 

 the honeybees know that they can not get 

 the nectar of the sweet peas if they never 

 visit the flowers?" Undoubtedly they do 

 visit them occasionally. We are apt to 

 forget that the half-hour we watch a flower 

 is only a small part of the day. How much 

 may ha]3j)en when we are not present ! On 

 the morning of August 16 I placed sugar 

 syrup on about ten flowers of the sweet 

 pea. This syrup, as you all know, is color- 

 less and odorless, so that the conditions re- 

 mained practically unchanged — that is, to 

 bees flying near, the flowers offered no 

 greater allurement than before. They could 

 not discover the sugar syrup unless they 

 alighted on the flowers. In the afternoon 

 1 saw two Avorker bumblebees feeding on 

 the syrup. On the afternoon of August 17 

 T found tln-ee honevbees satlierins' susar 



syrup, all of which they finally carried 

 away. Thus the syrup served its purpose, 

 which was to detain the bees until 1 had an 

 opportunity to see them. 



By September 22 the honey-flow from 

 the goldenrod was about over, and the bees 

 had more time to look about. On the after- 

 noon of this day I repeatedly saw them 

 alight on the flowers of the sweet pea. 

 They made no attempt to push down the 

 keel. One of them stood on the back of the 

 standard, and probed diligently, but, of 

 course, vainly, for nectar under the calyx 

 lobes. None of them succeeded in finding 

 the nectar through crevices as did the bum- 

 blebees. 



Even if the honeybee could obtain the 

 nectar, the sweet pea is not sufficiently 

 abundant to be of much value as a honey- 

 plant in most localities. But the garden pea 

 {Pisum sativum) in the vicinity of large 

 canning-factories is often cultivated by the 

 hundred acres. Large areas are also devot- 

 ed to the culture of the edible pea by the 

 market gardeners in the suburbs of large 

 cities. In the flowers I examined, there 

 was nectar present, though it was meager 

 in quantity. Whether it varies in abun- 

 dance in different varieties I am unable to 

 say, but probably there is not much differ- 

 ence. 



Not once during the entire summer did 

 I see a honeybee on the flowers, though 

 they were flying across the garden by the 

 hundred. Evidently they can not obtain 

 the nectar. One day I saw them alight on 

 the leaves for the purpose of obtaining 

 water, which was still remaining there from 

 a previous rain. Several times I saw a 

 queen of Bombus fervidus visit the flowers 

 in the legitimate way; but, as in each in- 

 stance, she visited only three or four flow- 

 ers, I concluded she found very little nee- 

 tar. I have never once seen the honeybee 

 obtain the nectar of the garden pea; and, 

 so far as I can learn, in not a single in- 

 stance is there an authentic record, either 

 in Europe or America, of any one ever 

 having seen honeybees actually sucking the 

 nectar of the edible garden pea. 



The garden pea as a honey-plant is, then, 

 of no value. Almost invariably they are 

 self-fertilized. It was, indeed, for this 

 reason that Gregor Mendel selected them 

 for his celebrated experiments in hybridi- 

 zation. He crossed a tall variety with a 

 dwarf, and all the offspring of the first 

 generation were tall. A cross between round 

 peas and wrinkled peas gave in the first 

 generation hybrids which produced only 

 round peas; while a cross between white 

 and colored flowers yielded hybrids with 

 colored flowers alone. As he raised a great 



