BEE PASTURAGE. 
95 
foot, secured by this appendage. Both sepals and 
petals of this flower are re-curved, that is, turned back- 
ward towards the stem, forming five acute angles, or 
notches, just the thing for a trap for a bee with 
strings of beads on its toes ; when at work they are 
very liable to slip a foot into one of these notches ; the 
flower being thick and firm, holds it fast ; pulling only 
diaws it deeper into the wedge-like cavity. The bee 
must either perish or break loose ; their instincts fail 
them in this emergency; they know nothing about 
getting it out by a gentle pull the other way. I 
never saw one do it except by accident. By examin- 
ing the buds of this plant just before opening, I found 
this fatal appendage, by which great numbers of our 
bees are lost.* When I point out a loss among our 
bees, I would like to give a remedy; but here I am at 
a loss, unless all these plants are destroyed, and this is 
impracticable in many places. After all I am not sure 
but honey enough is obtained by such bees as do es- 
cape, to counterbalance what we lose. This would de- 
pend on the amount of honey yielded by other flowers 
at the same time. 
Whitewood ( Liriodendron Tulipifera) yields some- 
thing eagerly sought for by the bees, but whether hon- 
ey, or pollen, or both, I have never been able to ascer- 
tain. AH the flowers of this kind, with us, are too 
* In Wood’s Class-book of Botany, “ Order CXI.,’' in a plate showing 
the parts of this plant, it is thus described : “Fig. 11, a pair of pollen 
masses suspended from the glands at an angle of the antheridium,”<fcc. 
One, when reading this simple botanical description, and seeing the 
plate, or the Botanist with his glasses, when he minutely inspects the 
parts, would not suspect anything fatal to bees about it. 
