HABITS AND INTELLIGENCE OF BEES 129 



effecting the fertilization of the flower in the act. I 

 have myself often since had my attention directed 

 to this habit in these bees, and it appears to be well 

 estabhshed that this propensity to subvert the 

 purposes of nature is largely developed in humble- 

 bees under certain circumstances, and not only in 

 the case of the flowers of the red clover, but also 

 those of the scarlet-runner and other plants. It 

 appears, indeed, that our hive-bees also, if they are 

 not actually guilty of the practice, do not scruple 

 to take advantage of the easy access to the honey 

 thus provided for them. Such practices, if they were 

 to become the rule, would soon bring their own 

 obvious punishment. 



Like many of the disreputable shifts resorted to 

 in trade, this habit is in all probability the result 

 of fierce competition for the means of obtaining an 

 honest UveMhood — another example of the action 

 and interaction of the various causes which silently 

 produce change and progress in nature. The hive- 

 bee, thanks to its habit of storing up food for winter 

 use, as well as to the protection of man, is able to 

 start work early in the year, and during the months 

 of April, May, and June, it practically has the range 

 of our fields and meadows all to itself. The colonies 

 of humble-bees, however, store up no honey, and do 

 not Uve through the winter, only a few of the young 

 queens of last season surviving. In April and May 

 the poor queen-mother has to seek out a retreat in 

 which single-handed she proceeds to rear what only 

 towards the beginning of July becomes a large 

 family. Now when these issue forth to forage in 

 the fields they find in many districts that, what with 

 a host of competitors of their own kind — and the hive- 



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