THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



793 



if I take money, they are to have a 

 small commission for selling it. But 

 I find that 1 can use the most of it in 

 trade this year, and save me just so 

 much money. 



The above plan has worked well 

 with me. The merchants have no 

 money invested, and I find that they 

 will not ship in honey if they can get 

 it at home, as extracted honey is gen- 

 erally candied, and the comb honey is 

 badly smashed up in shipping. The 

 method can be carried to an unlimited 

 extent, as my business increases and 

 as there are a dozen towns within a 

 radius of 30 miles of this place. 



I exchanged honey and hives for 12 

 colonies of bees this fall, so that I now 

 have 55 colonies in good condition in 

 the cellar under the kitchen. I put 

 them into the cellar on Nov. 19. 



I have a foot-and-hand power saw, 

 which for economy and tine workman- 

 ship in the apiary cannot be excelled. 

 I make the most of my hives and fix- 

 tures with it. The hive I use is my 

 invention, and from the past season's 

 experience I think that it is just what 

 is needed in this climate. It is an 8- 

 frame hive, the same depth as the 

 Langstroth and 1 inch shorter, so that 

 a super holding 4 tiers of 4>4-inch sec- 

 tions will just fit the hive. The su- 

 pers are what is called the '■ blank- 

 strip section-case,'" or similar to it. I 

 can use separators or not. as I like. I 

 find that the contraction of the brood- 

 chamber is very valuable when work- 

 ing for comb honey. 



Eedwood Falls, 6 Minn.,Dec. 6, 1887. 



Botanical Gazette. 



How Bees Extract Pollen from Flowers. 



PROF. CHARLES ROBERTSON. 



In regard to the visitors of Asclepias 

 Cornuti (common milkweed) Dr. JJer- 

 mann Muller observes that they '• slip 

 upon the smooth parts of the flower 

 until a foot enters the wide inferior 

 part of the slit, in which it at lasts 

 gets a firm hold." Mr. T. H. Corry 

 describes the insect as grasping the 

 back of a nectary, and plunging its 

 proboscis into its cavity, " endeavor- 

 ing at the same time to get a firm 

 and sure foothold on the unstable 

 flowers," until the insect at length 

 places one of its feet into the wider 

 part of an alar fissure. 



Having collected insects on the 

 flowers of six species of Asclepias, I 

 regard the normal action of the most 

 common and most efficient to be that 

 they hold on to a flower, or several 

 flowers, in such a way that their feet 

 go down below the aqgles of the ate, 

 and when the legs are drawn upwards 

 they are caught between the strongly 

 projecting hoods and guided by them 

 over the entrance of the stigmatic 

 chamber, which occupies the narrow 

 interval between their bases. Of na- 

 tive insects, the most common visitors 

 I have observed on A. SuUivantii, are 

 humble bees (Bombus separatus B, 

 Pennsylvanicus, and B. scutellaris) 

 and Danais Archippus. The feet of 

 humble bees reach down as far as the 

 bases of the petals, and I have often 



found the pollinia fastened upon their 

 tibial spurs as well as on their claws. 

 I have also found pollinia of this 

 species on the spurs and claws of 

 Danais Archippus, and high up on 

 tarsal hairs of I'riononyx Thomae. 



In a similar way, a specimen of 

 Scolia bicincta shows pollinia of A. 

 Cornuti on the tarsal hairs. However, 

 the gynostegia of these species are so 

 large that the feet of many visitors 

 will not reach far below the angles 

 of the wings, and, when this occurs, 

 the claws are the only parts which 

 are readily caught. The importance 

 of the hoods in guiding the legs of 

 insects over the angles of the wings, 

 is more apparent in the smaller flow- 

 ered species, since the more delicate 

 wings catch hairs which are not only 

 very fine and short, but which are 

 also situated much higher up on the 

 legs. Thus, hive bees caught on A. 

 SuUivantii and A. Cornuti, show pol- 

 linia only on their claws and pulvilli, 

 but they have the pollinia of A. tube- 

 rosa, A. incarnata, and A. verticillata 

 scat1;ered upon the hairs of the tarsi. 

 A specimen of Argynnis Cybele, 

 which I caught on A. Cornuti has 

 pollinia of this plant on its claws, and 

 pollinia of A. tuberosa on the tarsal 

 hairs 



H. Muller, who supposes that the 

 whole foot enters the stigmatic cham- 

 ber, says : " When the insect tries 

 to draw its foot out in order to pro- 

 ceed further, the diverging claws are 

 caught by the apposed edges of the 

 anther-wings, and guided upwards in 

 the slit, so that one or other of the 

 two claws is brought without fail into 

 the notch in the lower border of the 

 corpusculum and there held fast." 



On the same subject Mr. Corry says: 

 " When the foot reaches the superior 

 end of the alar chamber in which it 

 has been guided, one at least of the 

 two hooked claws upon it, or some 

 part of the foot in the case of Diptera, 

 must easily enter the hollow cavity of 

 the corpusculum, which lies in such a 

 position that this result is inevitable." 



The importance which these au- 

 thors attach to the view that the 

 whole foot enters the chamber, in my 

 opinion, rests on a misunderstanding 

 of the mode of insertion of the pol- 

 linia, and has led them to overlook 

 the precision with which a corpus- 

 culum comes to be fastened to a hair 

 or claw. The coipusculm is placed so 

 nicely at the top of the wings that its 

 cleft is fairly continuous with the slit 

 between them, and I cannot conceive 

 that the contrivance works normally 

 unless the particular part, i. e,, a sin- 

 gle claw, hair, or pulvillus to which 

 the corpusculum becomes attached, 

 is caught between the wings and 

 guided by them into the cleft. 



Believing that all processes are 

 caught as the leg of the insect passes 

 over the angle of the wing, I suppose 

 that only a single process is caught, 

 and that a claw is cauglit in exactly 

 the same manner as a hair or spur. 

 In a careful examination of the feet 

 of 116 hive-bees which were killed by 

 being caught on the flowers of A. 

 SuUivantii, I have found that, with 

 but two exceptions when a foot was 

 held by the wings, only one claw was 



between them, the other being free, 

 or less often the pulvillus was held 

 between the wings and both claws 

 were outside. 



When Urst withdrawn the pollinia 

 lie in the same plane. In a few min- 

 utes the twisting of the retinacula 

 brings the pollinia into nearly parallel 

 planes, but the upper ends are still . 

 separated by quite an interval. Ac- 

 cording to the authors to whom ref- 

 erence has been made, the pollinia 

 are inserted by the corpusculum. 

 From the analogy of observations 

 made on the movements of the pol- 

 linia of some Orchidaceae some ad- 

 vantage might be looked for in the 

 slow movement of the pollinia of 

 Asclepias. Indeed, Mr. Corry, who 

 has observed this phenomenon in A. 

 Cornuti,states that it is of advantage, 

 although he fails to show it ; and I 

 think it impossible so to do on the 

 supposition that the pollinia are in- 

 troduced by the corpuscula. He says : 



" Some considerable time, more- 

 over, must elapse after the pollinia 

 are extracted before the corpuscular 

 appendages are so far dried that both 

 pollinia of the same corpusculum can 

 be introduced through the fissure into 

 the alar chamber, and in the mean- 

 time the insect has had time to reach 

 another flower or plant." 



On another page he observes : " If 

 the movement did not occur on the 

 part of the pollinia, their broad sur- 

 faces would lie at right angles to the 

 alar fissure, and their insertion into 

 it in this position through the notch 

 would in consequence be rendered a 

 much more difficult, if not an alto- 

 gether impossible, operation ; or else 

 the pollinia in being slipped in would 

 become folded in the opposite direc- 

 tion, and the less curved border which 

 emits no pollen tubes would be first 

 inserted into the fissure." But what 

 is to prevent this consequence before 

 the movement takes place V What^ 

 ever might happen there is obviously 

 nothing to render the introduction of , 

 the corpusculum itself more diflicult 

 before the movement occurs than 

 afterwards, so that the slowness of 

 the movement is hardly an advantage 

 under this view. If the corpusculum 

 were very slender or flattened so that 

 a thin edge could be presented to the 

 slits, there would be no difliculty in 

 understanding how it could readily 

 slip into the stigmatic chamber ; but 

 it is a rounded body, and is relatively 

 large in comparison with the entrance 

 to the cavity. 



Of course, if the whole foot of an 

 insect commonly enters the stigmatic 

 chamber, it is not hard to uuderstand 

 how the corpusculum should go in 

 with it. But when the corpusculum 

 is fastened to a hair which is directed 

 outward and downward from the leg 

 of the insect, and which is often so 

 short that the corpusculum is fairly 

 in contact with the leg, the difficulty 

 increases. 



In the examination of the feet of 

 hive bees killed on the flowers, I have 

 failed to find a single case in which a 

 corpusculum was attached to that 

 part of the foot which was held be- 

 tween the anther wings. In my opin- 

 ion, therefore, the structure of the 



