The Honey Bee and the Fly 



367 



There are also bee-lice which attach themselves to the queen and 

 weaken her by sucking the juices from her body. The bee-lice, while 

 common along the Mediterranean Sea, are uncommon in America. 

 Spiders often catch bees in their webs. 



Other insects such as dragon-flies, ants, and wasps may attack bees. 

 Toads and lizards also attack them, but these latter can be removed to 

 some distance from the hive and will then serve the important function 

 of devouring really noxious insects. 



Mice prey upon pollen, honey, and even bees in the winter time. 

 One may note here, as we have already noted in the discussion of the 

 relation of insects to man, that there may be various ways of insuring 

 a "balance in nature." As cats devour mice, and mice bees, the number 

 of cats may be the deciding factor of the number of bees there are in a 

 given neighborhood. In fact, Huxley 

 even suggested that this idea could be 

 carried still further by considering the 

 number of old maids who were fond of 

 cats, these cat lovers then becoming the 

 deciding factor as to the number of bees 

 a given region might have. 



Various diseases also afflict bees. 

 These are probably largely of a bacterial 

 nature brought about by too long con- 

 finement in the hive. Once a disease has 

 taken hold of a hive, it may infect any or 

 all other hives in the region. 



GYNANDROMORPHS 



It has been found that among butter- 

 flies, ants, and bees, it is not uncommon 

 to have an abnormal individual which has 

 male characteristics in one part of its 

 body and female characteristics in an- 

 other. The term gynandromorphs (Fig. 



Fig. 239. 



Salvia sp. (One of the Labiatae.) a., 

 flower bud; b-f., various views of the open 

 flower; an., anther; St., stigma; x., projec- 

 tions near the base of the filaments. Tht lead 

 pencil is made to imitate an insect visiting 

 the flower for pollen. By pressure at the base 

 Dt the filaments, the anthers are brought into 

 contact with the surface of the pencil, which 

 thus becomes covered with pollen. When the 

 next flower is visited the stigma, having then 

 bent down and spread apart, .eceives the 

 pollen from the other flower. Thus is ac- 

 complished cross-pollination. In b., before the 

 visit of the insect, the stigmatic surfaces are 

 still in contact, so that pollination is not pos- 

 sible. (From C. Stuart Gager's "Funda- 

 mentals of Botany" by permission of P. Blak- 

 iston's Son & Co., Publishers.) 



Fig. 238. 

 External appearance of gynandromorph. 

 Lateral hermaphroditism of gypsy moth. Left 

 side female; right side male. (After Tasch- 

 enberg.) 



