6 PHTSIOLOGY OF THE HONET-BEE. 



While she was absent, we moved the paper. Returning, 

 she came directly to the spot, but, noticing that the yellow 

 paper was not there, she made several inquiring circles in 

 the air, and then alighted upon it. According to Mr. A. 

 J. Cook a similar experiment with the same results, was 

 made by Lubbock. ("Bee-keepers' Guide," Lansing, 1884.) 

 16. We usually give our bees flour, in shallow boxes, at 

 the opening of Spring, before the pollen appears in the 

 flowers. These boxes are brought in at night. Every morn- 

 ing they are put out again, after the bees have com- 

 menced flying and hover around the spot. If b}^ chance, 

 some bits of white paper are scattered about the place, the 

 bees visit those papers, mistaking them for flour, on account 

 of the color. 



17. But " the celehrated Darwin was mistaken in saying that 

 the colorless blossoms, which he names obscui-e blossoms, are 

 scarcely visited by insects, while the most highly colored blos- 

 soms are very fondly visited by bees." (Gaston Bonnier, " Les 

 Nectaires," Paris, 1870.) 



18. For, although color attracts bees, it is only one of the 

 means used by nature to bring them in contact with the 

 flowers. The smell of honej^ is, certainly, the main attrac- 

 tion, and this attraction is so powerful," that frequently, at 

 daybreak in the summer, the bees will be found in full 

 flight, gathering the honey which has been secreted in the 

 night, when nothing, on the preceding evening, could have 

 predicted such a crop. This happens especially when there 

 is a production of honey-dew, after a storm. We have e^en 

 known bees to gather honey from the tulip trees, (Lirioden- 

 clron tulipifera) on very clear moonlight nights. 



19. The antenniE (fig. 2, A, B), two flexible horns which 

 adorn the head of the bee, are black, and composed of 

 twelve joints, in the queen and the worker, and thirteen in 

 the drone. . The first of these joints, the scape, next to the 



