Burkhill found that it required an average weight of 

 1.68 grarmies to explode a flower of Medicago sativa 

 (Maximum and minuraum 2.37 and .93) The worker of Apis he 

 found to weigh about .096 and Bombus hortorum about .199 

 grammes. The mere weight of these two insects is there- 

 fore according to "Burkhill, insufficient to explode the 

 flower. 



Burkhill says the flower is not always in the same 

 degree of explosiveness ; the hotter the weather the more 

 explosive is the flower. 



He says shaking by the wind cannot explode the flowers 

 Pieces of paper with a surface of 18 l/2 and 22 square 

 inches were tied to stalks of this plant in order to give 

 more power to the wind but no effect was observable from 

 the shaking; it produced. 



Medicago Flowers Tripping Historical Resume' 



(Contribution from the Entomological Laboratory; ;^To. 

 65; Univ. of Kansas S.J. Hunter, 1898) 



Hunter published a bulletin in which he discussed 

 alfalfa and honey bees. He describes the tripping m-echam- 

 ism of the flowers. He evidently assumed that the common 

 domestic honey bee is capable of tripping the flowers but 

 does not record any observations of his own. 



Hunter gathered a large number of representative 

 ripened pods from an alfalfa field less than one half mile 



(67) 



