ii2 APRIL 



flowers. Although no colour in any part of the year is 

 more regal than the empurpling of the elms in February 

 and March, the separate flowers are inconspicuous enough 

 and the dust from them self-coloured. An odd bee may 

 have been lucky enough to bathe her thighs in the bowl 

 of an early crocus ; and she looked like a creature of 

 another birth when she came back to the hive as con 

 spicuously picked out as the ends of the wings of an 

 orange-tip butterfly. But the general source of supply 

 was from a less conspicuous flower. 



The only flowers open near the hive were primroses ; 

 and it seemed a pity this most English blossom, most 

 delicately scented, and rich with large stores of honey, 

 has no attractions for the hive bee. &quot; Thrum-eyed &quot; and 

 &quot; pin-eyed &quot; primroses have given most of us our first 

 lessons in the mechanics of fertilisation ; and yet no 

 flower is less popular with the tribe of insects. The 

 whole of the pretty devices, the dark centre, the pointing 

 lines, the green hollow, the golden dust, the translucent 

 spike, the sweet scent and savour, prove useful only so 

 it is alleged to one hover-fly, little known to the general 

 observer. However this may be, the bees, eager with 

 spring hunger, pay no regard whatever to the primroses 

 flowering freely not ten yards from the hive. The bees 

 fly past and fall with hurried greed on the bank of 

 aubrietia and single arabis. It is worth while growing 

 the simple, plain, dull, little original species of the au- 

 brietia solely for the bees sake. It is the earliest and the 

 best loved. The workers even anticipate its opening by 

 tearing the closed petals aside. 



The primrose is the least popular, if we except the 

 double daffodil and such flowers have really little right 

 to be double. The multiplication of petals is a growth 

 of over-civilisation, welcome but sophisticated. The 



