BEES DO THEIR WORK 343 



This familiar insect, the one member of its 

 vast tribe that is very directly helpful to man as a 

 producer of food, is the indispensable coadjutor 

 of the most important varieties of cultivated 

 plants. Bees of one species or another are the 

 universal distributors of pollen in orchard and 

 garden. The beautiful flowers that the apple 

 and plum and cherry put forth, and the perfumes 

 they exhale, are primarily designed as advertise- 

 ments for the bee and the bee alone. 



Whoever realizes this truth will not be likely 

 to doubt that the bee, in common with other in- 

 sects, has good olfactory organs and an eye for 

 the discernment of color. Yet there have been 

 entomologists, even in recent times, who have 

 questioned whether insects really have the sense 

 of smell, and others who have challenged their 

 color sense. 



As to the latter point, whoever has taken the 

 trouble to observe the maneuverings of an in- 

 dividual bee in the flower garden, and has seen 

 it pass from one red flower to another, quite often 

 confining its visits exclusively to blossoms of one 

 hue, will have gained sufficient evidence that the 

 bee is by no means color blind. 



As to the sense of smell, if further evidence 

 than that supplied by everyday observation of 

 the visits of insects to perfumed flowers were 



