1900 



GlyEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



561 



no trtie flower is hermaphrodite. To make it 

 clearer, the receptive and distributive organs 

 do not mature at one and the same time in the 

 same flower. From this it will be seen how 

 utterly impossible it is in the great majority 

 of cases for the anther to fertil ze its associat- 

 ed 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 adlie-ive. Its adhesive nature prevents it 

 from being blown about by winds, and it be- 

 comes necessary for an outside agent to trans- 

 mit it from the male to the female organs." 



Now comes the question. Are bees attracted 

 to blossoms by thtir color? and are certain 

 bright colors — red, blue, purple, etc., more at- 

 tractive to them than paler tints, such as 

 white-yellow? This my experience most cer- 

 tainly contradicts, although 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 flowered 

 there was not a stamen present. 

 No bees ever visited it" (to 

 the professor's knowledge). 

 " The plant was afterward neg- 

 lected 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 

 af ler the stamens appeared ? 

 The flowers were not nearly 

 so conspicuous 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 attractive 

 foraging-ground for the same 

 insects. A little later the peach- 

 tree burst into flower, with tie 

 result that the first named 

 was entirely forsaken, and the 

 latter receiving only an occa- 

 sional visit. Did the bees go to 



the peach-blossoms on account of their at- 

 tractive colors ? Not a bit of it. While the 

 peach trees were in flower the willows 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 attractive flowers in bloom, but few 

 bees visited them. The pollen was coming 

 from the peach and the willows. The catkins 

 of the willows are so inconspicuous that a 

 large number of people are ignorant of the 

 fact that the}' are blossoms ; yet they were as 

 attractive to the bees as the gaudy peach. 



"During the same spring I visited the bo- 

 tanical gardens. There were then beds of 

 English daisies, pansies, anemones, and the 

 turban ranunculus, in full bloom. Nothing 

 in the garden was more showy than the two 





»'■ 



OH, OH ! OCH, 0\V, OW ! PLAGUE TAKE THAT BEE. 



See EditoriaJ. 



