61 
THE AUSTRALIAN BEEKEEPERS’ JOURNAL. 
bright blue flowers were cut off in an experi- j the leaf until a bee alights on the wing petals, 
ment, bees crawled over to get other flowers, then its weight presses down the blossom, and 
When the small, upper leaves, which bees do first the end of the style touches the bee, and 
not use to stand on, were cut off, the bees it gets any pollen which it has brought from 
visited the flowers as usual. Odors attract the last-visited flower ; next, the style sticks 
insects, as shown by flowers covered with a 
muslin net. When possessed of odor they 
do not so much need color. Fourteen per 
cent of white flowers have a sweet odour, 
while only eight per cent of red ones have it. 
Honey was certainly put in flowers to entice 
insects. When the honey-sac was cut off a 
large number of flowers, more than half of 
them were not visited by insects, and produced 
no seed. Even dark-colored streaks on colored 
leaves of flowers are believed to be for guiding 
the insect to the honey-sac, so that it can suck 
a greater number of flowers in a given time, 
and hence produce more perfect cross-fer- 
tilisation. As honey is of use to plants only 
as it helps to cross-fertilise them, it is always 
placed where it will aid in this. 
When mature, the pollen-vessels and the 
seed-veBsels always stand in the pathway 
leading to the honey-sac. A certain amount 
of heat is necessary for the formation of honey. 
With some flowers, if the sun ceases to shine 
for half an hour, bees will cease to work on 
them for lack of honey. In most plants the 
construction of the pollen-glands and the 
seed-vessels are evidently arranged with the 
evident intention of making the bees rub 
against them when it seeks the flower for 
honey. In such places the pollen is moist 
or glutinous. In wind-fertilised plants the 
pollen is dry and powdery, and the seed- 
vessel is usually sticking out, and hairy, to 
catch the pollen. 
Many flowers are irregular, one or more 
leaves flattened to serve as a landing-place 
for the bee, and their honey-sac is on that 
side of the flower. Violets have large con- 
spicuous flowers adapted to cross-fertilisation, 
and these flowers are very fragrant, and 
have much honey. In the harebell the 
honey-sac is at the bottom of the bell. The 
pollen-vessels open first, and shed pollen into 
the bottom of the bell, around the honey-sac. 
The seed-vessel remains close. Several days 
later, when the pollen is dead, the seed-vessel 
opens and receives pollen from other flowers. 
In the daisy, one head has many flowers. 
Tho outer white leaves serve as an attraction 
and resting-place, and produce no pollen. 
Inner flowers have pollen-vessels in the form 
of a hollow tube, into the middle of which the 
pollen falls, and is pushed up and into view by 
the tip of tho seed-vessel. Afterward, when 
the seed-vessel is full grown, and most of the 
pollen has been brushed off, the top opens and 
exposes tho inner face to the seed-vessel to 
pollen brought from other plants. 
In a common garden-beau tho stamens shed 
pollen on the middle of the style. One of the 
flower leaves is wound into a tube containing 
both stamens and style. These remain inside 
out still further, and the pollen on its middle 
hits the same spot, and prepares the bee for 
the next flower. 
In the lady-slipper the honey-sac is at the 
bottom of the slipper. The bee enters the 
large slit on the upper side of the slipper 
Edges are indexed, so that the bee cannot 
creep out the same way. There are two small 
holes near the stalk, through which it can get 
out. In doing so it must brush against the 
seed-vessel and pollen-masses. If the pollen- 
masses were first the plant would be self-ferti- 
lised, but in fact the seed-vessel comes first, 
and pollen is carried off to be left on the 
stigma of the next flower it enters. 
Orchids have a sticky material that will set 
at once ; as soon as the insect’s head touches 
it the honey is free in the sac. When the 
sticky material requires more time to harden, 
the honey-sac is empty, and the honey is con- 
tained in the lining of the sac, and the bee has 
to bore through the wall of this lining in 
several places before it can get all the honey. 
Bees have habits which help cross-fertili- 
sation. They work on flowers of one kind as 
long as they can before changing to another 
kind. This is not to help the plant, but 
because they have learned how to stand and 
work better. Bees search for honey by 
instinct, by experience, since they work a3 
soon as they emerge from the pupa state. 
They search introduced plants as readily as 
native flowers which do not secrete honey, and 
often try to suck honey out of the honey-sacs 
that are too long for them to reach. Bees can- 
not tell without entering a flower whether 
other bees have exhausted the honey, and 
hence the flower is more perfectly cross-fertil- 
ised. Mr. Miller found that in a certain set 
of blossoms visited by a bumble bee, four- 
fifths lird been previously visited. 
The great number of flowers which bees can 
visit in a short time greatly increases the 
chances of any given flower being cross- 
fertilised. In one minute a bumble bee visited 
twenty-four of the closed flowers of flax. In 
fifteen miuutes a single flower on the sum- 
mit of a plant of evening primrose was visited 
eight times by various bees. In nineteen 
minutes every flower on a certain flowering 
plant was visited twice. In one minute six 
flowers of a harebell were entered by a pollen- 
collecting bee, for when collecting pollen they 
work more slowly than when collecting honey. 
It was estimated at one time that the flowers 
in a certain flower-bed were each visited thirty 
times daily during the week or more than 
there were in blossom. Bumble-bees in collect- 
ing honey fly at the rate of ten miles an hour. 
Bees have other habits which are directly 
opposed to cross-fertilisation. In flowers liar- 
