BEE MANUAL. 79 



Darwin has proved experimentally the great advantages 

 rendered to agriculture by the bee, in the fertilization of clo- 

 vers, etc. ; and Mr. Cheshire and many other writers have 

 demonstrated in a satisfactory manner the services rendered to 

 horticulture by the action of bees upon the fruit blossoms. 

 Finally, the peculiar value of bees, as compared with other 

 insects, in the business of fertilizing plants, is thus described by 

 Herman Miiller, in his book on " The Fertilization of Flowers," 

 when speaking of the various fertilizing insects : — 



' ' Bees, which not only feed on the produce of flowers, but nourish 

 their young also thereon, are in such intimate and lifelong relations 

 with flowers, that they show more adaptation to a floral diet, and are 

 more important for the fertilization of our flowers, and have therefore 

 led to more adaptive modifications in these flowers, than all the fore- 

 going orders (of insects) put together 



" Bees, as the most skilful and diligent visitors, have played the 

 chief part in the evolution of flowers ; we owe to them the most nume- 

 rous, most varied, and most specialised forms. Flowers adapted to 

 bees probably surpass all others together in variety of colour. The 

 most specialised, and especially the gregarious, bees have produced 

 great differentiations in colour, which enable them, on their journeys, 

 to keep to a single species of flower. While those flowers which are 

 fitted for a miscellaneous lot of short-lipped insects usually exhibit 

 similar colours (especially white or yellow) over a range of several 

 allied species, the most closely allied species growing in the same loca- 

 lity, when adapted for bees, are usually of different colours, and can 

 thereby be recognised at a glance (e.g., Trifolium, Lamium, Tenerium, 

 Pedicularis). " 



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XIOM. 



" Bees, when frightened by smoke, ok by drumming on theik 

 hives, fill themselves with honey, and lose all disposition to 



STING, UNLESS THEY ARE HURT.'' Langstroth. 



