272 AUSTRALIAN BEE LORE AND BEE CULTURE. 



from variety to variety, and sometimes from species to species, 

 but not from order to order. After a foraging excursion they are- 

 never seen to return to the hive with different varieties of pollen 

 on their bodies. In examining a, cell of pollen in the hive, each 

 stratum is seen to belong to distinct species of the vegetable- 

 kingdom (not varieties). With other insects that only feed on 

 pollen grains, they consume it on the anther whereon they alight. 

 It is for immediate consumption for each one's present wants. 

 Where other insects visit one blossom, bees- will visit a hundred.. 

 Watch a butterfly on a flower and compare its actions with the 

 rapid movements of a bee, and judge for yourself which is the 

 better worker of the two. You must bear in mind that in early 

 spring, flowers, and especially fruit blossoms, mature rapidly. Of 

 the essential organs the anthers in most cases come to perfection 

 first, and are the first to die. The pollen is distributed in a very 

 few hours, and its vitality in most instances is short-lived. The- 

 pistil with stigma and its carpels are very delicate organisms, there- 

 fore liable to all kinds of accidents. When we remember the- 

 chief characteristics of the stigma, it will be seen that a dust 

 -storm is capable of clogging it, and thus prevent fructification. A 

 dust storm in early spring has a deal to answer for in the failure 

 of fruit crops ; so has heavy rain, wind, or anything else that may 

 bruise these very delicate portions of the flower. Rom this will 

 be seen the imperative necessity for some rapidly-moving agent 

 to convey the perishable pollen to the highly-sensitive stigma. 

 The numerical strength of these agents must be in proportion to 

 the quantity of work they are expected to do, or the areas under 

 fruit culture they are to visit. If bee-keepers and their bees were 

 banished from Australia there would be fruit, but in what quan- 

 tities? I have referred elsewhere to the mischief done by butter- 

 flies and some other insects, but no such mischief ever follows in 

 the wake of the bee. Fertilisation by agents other than bees 

 would be sufficient to perpetuate species of fruits, and occasionally 

 to produce varieties ; but to fertilise heavy crops sufficient to feed 

 mankind they are too inactive, and the mature insects- numerically 

 too weak. If adult butterflies, &c, were equal in number to adult 

 bees a famine would follow in the track of their larvae as disastrous 

 as that caused by the armies of locusts that have been known to- 

 sweep over the Holy Land in times past. Numerous insectivorous 

 birds and other animals almost live exclusively on insects, their 

 eggs and larvae, and thus their injurious ravages are somewhat 

 checked. ; 



