BENEFICIAL INSECTS 199 



colours may always be seen. The bees knead the pollen 

 into pellets and neatly pack it into their " pollen baskets " 

 on their hind legs. They are enabled to do so because the 

 pollen of insect-fertilised flowers, with the exception of 

 those of the cucumber family, is sticky, whilst that of 

 wind-fertilised flowers, being non-adhesive, cannot be made 

 into pellets. 



In order that fertilisation may take place, pollen from 

 a certain species of plant must reach the stigma of the 

 same species; pollen from an apple tree could never 

 fertilise an orange. How, then, is provision made by nature 

 for this essential ? Watch a number of bees at work and 

 the answer will be unmistakably revealed. In the spring, 

 bees begin work about sunrise, and if they have selected an 

 apple tree from which to gather stores, they will keep on 

 apple trees or some other member of the tribe for the 

 whole of their outing. Foraging about among the anthers, 

 they gather on their hairs countless grains of pollen ; head, 

 thorax, and abdomen are all more or less dusted with them. 

 During the early morning they are solely engaged in collect- 

 ing pollen ; passing from flower to flower and tree to tree, 

 they busily collect their harvest and pack it in their " pollen 

 baskets." Later in the day the stigma becomes receptive, 

 and the bees then begin their search for honey ; for nectar, 

 which is not secreted in the early hours, now begins to flow. 

 Anxious to fill their honey sac whilst gathering pollen, 

 the bees enter the flowers and thrust their tongues down 

 into the nectaries ; in doing so they brush their bodies to 

 and fro on the stigmas, and so some of the pollen grains on 

 their fur become detached, and, falling on the viscid stigma, 

 are retained. Having commenced working on an apple for 

 pollen, they will not go to a Tropaeolum or any other plant 

 for their honey. Apples provided the pollen ; apples must 

 provide the honey. Other insects, it is true, visit flowers 

 for pollen and honey, but none work so systematically as 

 the social bees ; they make no mistakes. They will carry 



