BEES AND PLANTS 197 



fruit for the sake of the juices. This was the special 

 complaint of grape-growers. Investigations have 

 proved that bees never puncture the rind of ripe 

 fruit, although they sometimes are tempted to sip 

 the oozing juices, after the rind is broken through 

 some other agency. 



Even before the fruit-bloom the willows offer a 

 feast to break the fast of the hungry swarms. Half 

 the winter the pussy-willow stands waiting in her 

 furs to be ready with her grist of pollen, so that the 

 bees may make bread during the first warm days of 

 spring. The willows burned their bridges behind 

 them eons ago and depend almost entirely upon the 

 bees for fertilisation, since they are dioecious. Some 

 apiarists have claimed that their bees get no 

 nectar from certain species of willow; but this could 

 hardly be so if trees of both sexes were present in a 

 locality; for the staminate flowers offer pollen and 

 the pistillate flowers give nectar to induce the bees 

 to fetch and carry for them. 



The maples are not much behind the willows in 

 offering the bees food after their winter fast. The 

 bloom of the red maple is regarded by most bee- 

 keepers as permission from Spring to bring out the 

 bee-hives from the cellar and tenements. All our 

 common species of maple are very much visited by 

 the bees. 



The locusts often yield large crops of honey, 

 although they vary with the seasons in this respect. 

 Honey-locust, when in bloom, is covered with bees. 



The tulip tree is one of the most beautiful of our 



