122 BEES AND FLOWERS 



is produced by flowers in an abundance entirely 

 out of proportion to the amount required for 

 fertilisation, so, although the bee may take for 

 itself much more pollen than it distributes, it 

 yet distributes sufficient for the requirements of 

 the flowers. The next feature which makes the 

 bee pre-eminent as a pollen distributor is its 

 methodical way of working. While it is not quite 

 accurate to say that bees only visit one particular 

 kind of flower on each journey, for all practical 

 purposes it is so, and one has only to 

 watch a bee which is working, say, on Canterbury 

 bells, to see how it passes over all the other kinds 

 of flowers in journeying from one plant to another. 

 Why this should be so is rather a matter of conjec- 

 ture. It may be that it prefers not to mix 

 different kinds of honey or pollen, just as we our- 

 selves, if intending to pick fruits from the garden, 

 would probably make different journeys, or, at 

 any rate, use different receptacles for raspberries 

 and strawberries. As the bee has not the power 

 of using different receptacles, it is forced to make 

 separate journeys. 



I am very much inclined to think that this 

 explanation, simple and perhaps unscientific as it 

 is, is the true one, although I am well aware that 

 it might possibly have been brought about by 

 natural selection favouring those bees which 

 habitually adhered to one kind of flower. At any 

 rate, it may be taken as a fact that as a general 



