Color in Nature 



331 



existing between them. The body of a worker honey bee, 

 which gathers the honey and the pollen for the hive, and 

 performs all the other "chores" of the bee community, such 

 as those of nurse maid, house cleaner, biitler, architect, po- 

 liceman, and even executioner and undertaker, is clothed 

 with numerous branched hairs, to which the pollen adheres 

 as &e bee goes crawling about in the cups of the flowers 

 which it visits. On one of the joints of the middle leg of 

 the bee is a groove, overhung by rows of stiff bristles, form- 

 ing the "pollen basket," while another joint of the same leg 

 carries several rows of bristles or "pollen combs," by means 

 of which the pollen is combed out of the hairs and trans- 

 ferred to the pollen basket where it sticks in the form of a 

 large ball. The "basket" enables the bee to carry more 



Eelation of Bee and Flower, a Salvia. 



1, flower parts in usual position; 2, anthers ereet; 3, anthers tipped 

 down; 4, bee entering flower; 5, flower with extruded style. From 

 Kellogg, after Lubbock. 



pollen to its hive than it could if it depended solely on the 

 hairs for this purpose. A part of the bee's esophagus is 

 enlarged to form a "honey sac" in which is stored the nec- 

 tar which it sucks from the flowei-s, and which in the hive 

 is evaporated to form the honey. 



As the bee goes buzzing about from flower to flower, in 

 search of nectar, some of the pollen from one flower is trans- 

 ferred to another, and fertilization is thus effected. The 

 manifold modifications of various types of flowers to ensure 

 transference of pollen by insects, and to admit only those 

 species which will pay for their supply of honey by trans- 

 ferring pollen, the insect Bolsheviki and I.W.W.'s, which 

 would appropriate the honey but carry no pollen in return, 



