534 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL, 



Aug-. 23, 1900. 



in plants as in animals. The one great aim of all veg-etable 

 and animal life is to reproduce its species. Both sexes in 

 all the hig-her orders of animal life possess locomotive 

 powers to enable them to come together for procreative 

 purposes. Locomotive powers in plant-life are very rare. 



" The higher orders of animals are uni-sexual ; occa- 

 sionally there are malformations termed hermaphrodites ; 

 but in the plant world the higher orders are uni-sexual, bi- 

 sexual, or hermaphrodites — uni-sexual when the male and 

 female organs are on separate plants ; bi-sexual when male 

 and female organs are in separate flowers, but on the same 

 plant ; hermaphrodite when the procreative organs are both 

 on the same blossom. Yet, nevertheles, 7io true flower is 

 hermaphrodite. To make it clearer, the receptive and dis- 

 tributive organs do not mature at one and the same time in 

 the same flower. From this it will be seen how utterly im- 

 possible it is in the great majority of cases for the anther 

 to fertilize its associated stigma. 



" In nearly every case the pollen of insect-loving plants 

 is not dry and powdery, as in the case of wind-loving 

 flowers, but is heavy and adhesive. Its adhesive nature 

 prevents it from being blown about by winds, and it be- 

 comes necessary for an outside agent to transmit it from 

 the male to the female organs." 



Now comes the question. Are bees attracted to blos- 

 soms by their color ? and are certain bright colors — red, 

 blue, purple, etc., more attractive to them than paler tints, 

 such as white-yellow ? This my experience most certainly 

 contradicts, altho it has so been stated by high authority. I 

 quote from Sir John Lubbock's work on "Bees, Ants, and 

 Wasps :" 



" I brought a bee to some honey which I placed on blue 

 paper, and about three feet from it I placed a similar quan- 

 tity of honey on orange paper." 



Why he needed to place a similar quantity I can not 

 tell ; and why he should have brought a bee instead of 

 allowing one to find it, is a problem I can not solve. 



" The question now is, ' Was the bee attracted by the 

 color of the paper or by the honey ?' Last summer in my 

 garden I had a scarlet dahlia in bloom. When it first flow- 

 ered there was not a stamen present. No bees ever visited 

 it " [to the Professor's knowledge]. "The plant was after- 

 ward neglected by me, and this neglect caused the stamens 

 to appear and the pollen to mature. With this change in 

 the flower it soon became a foraging-ground for the bees. 

 Why did they not visit the early blooms?- Because there 

 was no bee-food present. Why did they visit it after the 

 stamens appeared ? The flowers were not nearly so con- 

 spicuous as the earlier bloom. But in passing over they 

 saw there was a reward for their labor. Early last spring 

 the white arum lily was in bloom, and its white pollen was 

 eagerly sought for by the bees. At the same time the 

 broad beans were in full flower. These, too, were an at- 

 tractive foraging-ground for the same insects. A little 

 later the peach-tree burst into flower, with the result that 

 the first named was entirely forsaken, and the latter re- 

 ceiving only an occasional visit. Did the bees go to the 

 peach-blossoms on account of their attractive colors ? Not 

 a bit of it. While the peach-trees were in flower the wil- 

 lows were just showing their catkins. During the bloom of 

 peach and willow my bees were bringing pollen of the two 

 colors only — creamy-white and orange tint. At the same 

 time were roses, marigolds, arum lilies, and other attrac- 

 tive flowers in bloom, but few bees visited them. The pol- 

 len was coming from the peach and the willows. The cat- 

 kins of the willows are so inconspicuous that a large num- 

 ber of people are ignorant of the fact that they are blos- 

 soms ; yet they were as attractive to the bees as the gaudy 

 peach. 



" During the same spring I visited the botanical gar- 

 dens. There were then beds of English daisies, pansies, 

 anemones, and the turban ranunculus, in full bloom. Noth- 

 ing in the garden was more showy than the two latter, yet 

 not a bee visited them. Near these was a shrub (Buxus 

 seinpervirens) in which there was a constant hum of bees. 

 What was the cause ? Hidden- among the dark-green foli- 

 age were hundreds of small greenish flowers supplying 

 abundance of food. If color had been the attractive agent, 

 bees would never have discovered their food in the shrub, 

 but would have sought the showy beds of anemones, etc., 

 in vain ; they were double, and therefore there was no bee- 

 food. A short time afterward I saw the bougainvilleas 

 aglow with their showy bracts. They could be seen hun- 



dreds of yards away. At the same time the pittosporums 

 were in flower, which were most inconspicuous. In the 

 former there were no bees to be seen, notwithstanding their 

 fiery glow, whilst in the latter there was a sound as tho a 

 swarm of bees had taken possession of it. Watch a large 

 bed of poppies of mixt colors. No one color is neglected 

 by the bees. Poppies are great pollen-producers." 



" Darwin tells us that it took ages on the other side of 

 the world for flowers to develop, and the bees centuries to 

 adapt themselves to the flowers. The chief honey-yielding 

 plants of this continent are the eucalyptus, pittosporum, 

 and tea-tree families. All these bear whitish flowers. Our 

 introduced fruit-trees and ornamental flowering plants bear 

 brightly colored blooms. In springtime our introduced 

 fruit-trees are conspicuous by the multiplicity of their 

 flowers, and our little native bees as readily find the nectar 

 in them as our introduced bees, and they can not have had 

 ages of experience to guide them. And does it not seem 

 very strange that our hive-bees, upon their introduction 

 here, should have forsaken the bright-colored flowers of the 

 old land that were introduced here at the same time they 

 were ? The hive-bee, on its arrival here, after having been 

 educated to the high standard It is said to have attained in 

 the Old World, works upon, not our introduced flowers, red, 

 blue, purple, so much as upon our simple white and yellow 

 ones, so unlike what they ought to have done according to 

 the education they received at our antipodes. Is it not queer 

 that our bees should have gone back in their tastes for color 

 when they crost over the equatorial line and came to this 

 side of the world ?" 



With due impartiality I have in the foregoing now 

 made the reader acquainted with the essentials of Prof. 

 Gale's observations and conclusions. I can not deny my- 

 self the privilege of making some comments, and also to 

 post the reader on what others have done in a similar line, 

 so he may be in a position to judge for himself. Of course, 

 we are agreed that the honey-bee plays a very important 

 part in agriculture, and I am glad the Professor holds this 

 view. In regard to the question, " Are certain colors more 

 sympathetic to bees?" opinions differ. All the observa- 

 tions Prof. G. cites fail to prove that color does not attract 

 bees. He seems to labor und^r the impression that others 

 had so misconceived the nature of our industrious little 

 friends as to think they would ever stand around admiring 

 the beauty of the flowers. I can assure the Professor we 

 all have a better conception of the business qualification of 

 our bee. • We are well satisfied they do not visit ever so 

 gaudy flowers if those flowers have nothing to offer. To 

 find out whether a certain color is more attractive to the 

 bee than another we must allow the bee to choose between 

 the colors, and we must adjust all other conditions so as to be 

 exactly alike. If one blossom, inconspicuous as it may be, 

 hides in the depths of its corolla delicious nectar, that blos- 

 som will be visited by the bees. A highly colored flower, 

 but yielding neither pollen nor honey, will receive no atten- 

 tion from bees. What reasonable person would expect any- 

 thing else ? 



The bee has two sets of eyes, one set calculated for long 

 range, the other for short distance. It can, therefore, see. 

 Its antenna; are excellent olfactory organs, and it can prob- 

 ably scent nectar in flowers for a longer or shorter distance. 

 I judge that it does not require much time for a bee to ascer- 

 tuin whether a blossom, even a strange flower, is worth 

 visiting or not. 



Dr. Herm. Muller, of Germany, conducted a long series 

 of experiments some 15 years ago, which seem to show that 

 gaudy colors are not preferred by the bee. Light-yellow, 

 white, light-blue, violet, rose, purple, bright-yellow, fiery 

 red — that seems to be the order of their choice. Dr. M. took 

 diff'erent colored plates upon which he placed food, and then 

 he noted the behavior of the bees, spending a great deal of 

 time. Generally but two colors were submitted to choose 

 from. The result was as stated. 



An observation he made, which is not exactlj' in line 



