380 FRUCTIFICATION OF FLOWERS. 



CHAPTER XXXVIII. 



IMPORTANCE OF BEES TO THE FRUCTI- 

 FICATION OF FLOWERS. 



HONEY is regarded by modern naturalists as of 

 no other use to plants but to allure insects, which, 

 by visiting the nectaries of their flowers to pro- 

 cure it, become instrumental to their fertilization, 

 either by scattering the dust of the stamens upon 

 the stigmata of the same flower, or by carrying it 

 from those which produce only male blossoms to 

 those that bear female ones, and thereby rendering 

 the latter fertile. 



No class of insects renders so much service in 

 this way as bees ; they have however been accused 

 of injuring vegetables, in three ways : 1st, by pur- 

 loining for their combs the wax which defends 

 the prolific dust of the anthers from rain ; 2ndly, 

 by carrying off the dust itself, as food for their 

 young larvae ; and 3dly, by devouring the honey 

 of the nectaries, intended to nourish the vegetable 

 organs of fructification*. 



In defence of his insect protegees, DR. EVANS 

 has observed : 



" First, That the proportion of wax collected 



* Darwin's Phytologia. 



