51 



BEGINNING AN ACQUAINTANCE WITH WILD BEES. 



BY J. A. GUIGNARD, OTTAWA. 



On a hot, bright day of July, 1883, I visited a cedar and larch swamp near Ottawa, 

 particularly rich in plants of that magnificent Canadian orchid, the showy Lady's Slipper, 

 {Cypripedium spectabile). Their conspicuous pink and white blossoms were at the time 

 in all their glory ; however, they were not exactly the attraction for me. My object was 

 to find out, if possible, what insects know how to appreciate them and take advantage of 

 their store of nectar. Which of those dwellers of the air could it be, that so far trusted 

 the curious mocassin-shaped lip, as to dare to penetrate its recesses 1 Having observed 

 the behaviour of flies imprisoned in such flowers,* I had been led to understand how 

 certain insects of proper size, in their search for the sweat juices, mast be the agents of 

 fertilisation of the plant. They enter through the large aperture above, but on account 

 of the peculiar conformation of the cavity, they can come out only through one of the 

 -snuller openings under the anthers at the bxse of: the flower, and there, if of proper size, 

 must of necessity rub their backs against the anther above, thu3 detaching som j of the 

 gummy pollen, which they afterwards unconsciously carry to the stigmas of other flowers. 



Though I had before taken advantage of every opportunity of watching Cypripedium 

 flowers, I had not yet succeeded in finding any live insects in them. But, as I now kept 

 peering into every lip that I could see amongst the high herbs and grass, at last I noticed 

 a dark object in one of them. I quickly threw my net over the flower and very soon 

 there came out a bee through one of the posterior apertures. A bse, I said ; — it was at 

 least an insect very like the honey-bee, as to size and general appearance, but blacker and 

 more massive in all the parts of its body. The posterior legs, however, were shorter and 

 lackei the characteristic width of the pa,rt which the honey-bee uses as a basket for 

 cirrying pollen from the flowers to the hive. But this deficiency in the wild insect wxs 

 amply compensated by a thick lining of black hair covering all the lower surface of the 

 abdomen ; and in many species of this and allied genera, I have since often found this 

 orush loaded with white, yellow, red, or brown pollen altogether coacealing the hairs. 



In Lady's Slippers, however, such a brush was of no use to the insect, as the adhesive 

 pollen of the stamens could only mit the hiir, coating and crippling at the same time 

 the lews an! other organs which might become besmeared with it. The anther, never- 

 theless, does not let the bee escape without some pollen adhering to its back, where it- 

 can least impede its movements. I replaced the insect several time3 in different flowers, 

 and saw it always follow in them the same road; it immediately disappeared in the 

 narrow passage under the stigma, which retained some of the pollen and issued under one 

 of the anthers after a more or less energetic struggle, according to the size of the aperture 

 and the rigidity of its edges, which always become relaxed with age. If introduced into 

 a flower of small size, from which it could not force its way as before, the insect had a 

 very quick method of regaining its liberty ; it immediately began to bite and tear away 

 the walls of its prison with its two powerful jaws or mandibles, and very soon enlarged 

 the opening or cut a new hole. The mandibles are indeed remarkable instruments, stout 

 and strong compared to which those of the honey-bee are like knife blades by the side 

 of lumbermen's axes. They are triangular in shape and toothed on the inside edge, 

 where they close against each other, so as to form excellent nippers. 



I had never previously felt the need of much knowledge of bees, nor indeed of any 

 other insects, but I very naturally felt now a desire to know the name of this useful 

 servant of the showy Lady's Slipper. I therefore brought it to entomologists of my 

 aequaintance, — eminent entomologists, deeply versed in the lore of beetles, of moths, of 

 butterflies, but who, to my great disappointment, had up to that time somewhat neglected 

 that of bees, so that I could not get from them the help I wanted. I then turnej to 

 books, and a^ain, was not a little astonished to find that there was not one single work in 

 English treating of the classification of American bees in the same way as the numerous 



* See "Le Naturaliste Canadien," Vol. XIII. (1882), p. 221 and XVIth Report of the Eaton*. Soc. of 

 Ont. (1886), p. 45. 



