562 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



July 15. 



latter, yet not a bee visited them. Near these 

 was a shrub ( Buxus sempervire7is ) in which 

 there was a constant hum of bees. What was 

 the cause? Hidden among the dark -green 

 foliage were hundreds of small greenish flow- 

 ers supplying abundance of food. If color 

 had been the attractive agent, bees would have 

 never discovered their food in the shrub, but 

 would have sought the showy beds of anemo- 

 nes, 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 

 hundreds 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 

 though a swarm of bees had taken possession 

 of it. Watch a large bed of poppies of mixed 

 colors. No one color is neglected by the bees. 

 Poppies are great pollen producers." (I am 

 obliged to omit a great many more of these 

 observations of the professor, on account of 

 lack of space. They are all in the same line. 

 — F. G.) 



" 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, pittospo- 

 rum, and tea-tree families. All these bear 

 whitish flowers. Our introduced fruit-trees 

 and ornamental flowering plants bear bright- 

 ly colored blooms. In springtime our intro- 

 duced fruit-trees are conspicuous by the mul- 

 tiplicity 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 for- 

 saken 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 flow- 

 ers, red, blue, purple, so much as upon our 

 simple white and yellow ones, so unlike what 

 they ought to have done according to the edu- 

 cation they received at our antipodes. Is it 

 not queer that our bees should have gone back 

 in their tastes for color when they crossed over 

 the equatorial line and came to this side of 

 the world?" 



With due impartiality I have in the forego- 

 ing now made the reader acquainted with the 

 essentials of Prof. Gale's observations and 

 conclusions. I can not deny myself the priv- 

 ilege 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 observations Prof. G. 

 cites fail to prove that color does not attract 

 bees. He seems to labor under the impres- 



sion that others had so misconceived the na- 

 ture of our little industrious friends as to think 

 they would ever stand around admiring the 

 beauty of the flowers. I can assure the pro- 

 fessor we all have a better conception of the 

 business qualification of our bee. We are well 

 satisfied they do not visit ever so gaudy flow- 

 ers if- those flowers have nothing to offer. To 

 find out whether a certain color is more at- 

 tractive to the bee than another we must allow 

 the bee to choose between the colors, aiid we 

 must adjust all other conditions so as to be ex- 

 actly alike. If one blossom, inconspicuous as 

 it may be, hides in the depths of its corolla 

 delicious nectar, that blossom will be visited 

 by the bees. A highly colored flower, but 

 yielding neither pollen nor honey, will receive 

 no attention from bees. What reasonable per- 

 son would expect any thing else ? 



The bee has two sets of eyes, one set calcu- 

 lated for long range, the other for short dis- 

 tance. It can, therefore, see. Its antennae 

 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 re- 

 quire much time for a bee to ascertain whether 

 a blossom, even a strange flower, is worth vis- 

 iting 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 different-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 ex- 

 actly in line with our subject, " Influence of 

 color," etc., I will make mention of here, as 

 it is very interesting : 



Watching a single bee he found it would get 

 its fill of honey in 2)^ minutes. In 3>^ min- 

 utes it had made the home trip, had unloaded 

 and returned. On the whole it made 70 

 trips in 7 hours. All bees observed were 

 marked with oil color on the thorax ; every 

 other bee a different color. Thus he was en- 

 abled to distinguish between the different bees, 

 and to note their individual behavior to the 

 colors and otherwise. The different bees be- 

 haved differently in many ways. Finally an 

 average was taken. In this way the conclu- 

 sions arrived at had some foundation. It 

 would have led too far to give these experi- 

 ments in detail, and for that reason I have on- 

 ly briefly mentioned them. It will seem to 

 me they prove more than Prof. Gale's obser- 

 vations. 



Color exercises a pleasurable sensation upon 

 the human eye, and why not upon the eye of 

 the bee ? Prof. G. says, in the beginning of 

 his address, " As a rule, inconspicuous flowers 

 are wind-lovers, and those of gaudy tints are 

 insect-lovers. " It would be reasonable to sup- 

 pose that the color was given these latter 

 flowers so to attract the bees and insects. Of 

 course, that does not yet prove that one color 



