Waterbury Democrat., 1901-06-12
Free Lunches for Bees

H
 stands far back from the dirt road in a three-acre grove of big oaks and hickories- Under the trees the grass grows thick and Is everywhere starred by hundreds of blue and yellow violets, buttercups, wild strawberry blossoms, trilliums and dozen other blossoms.
 These are the first flowers of back ward May, and have greater interest to the amateur experimental farmer than the more gorgeous blossoms which appear in the summer and fall. The late blooming flowers have, as rule, settled the country from Maine to California. They are to be found everywhere and have no peculiar in- :terest. It is early in the year that the flowers peculiar to each locality ap- pear, and it is among them, therefore, that one looks for individual charm and interest.
 Take the common blue violet of the woods, for example As rule, the seeds of the violet are fertilized by the honey bee, which, while sucking honey from one blossom, gets it's body cov- cred with the pollen from the stamens, and on visiting the second violet blooms rubs this pollen off on the pistils and so fertilizes the seed. In order to att tract the bee, whose services it so much needs, the violet has put on bluish-purple dress. Careful experi- ments have proved that the honey bee, like Julius Caesar, is especially fond of purple. But the advertisement of purple dress and of the sweet odor s.I- Sc. l. I,xx 4 1,a kVsa would not be enough of itself to i'm sure the visit of the bee. So the wise violet .'sets out a free lunch' in the shape of nectar for it's visitor. This free lunch" is so placed that it is in- possible to get it without brushing against the pollen-laden stamens. Moreover, the violet further adver- tises the exact location of it's store of hidden avseets Rby the delicate dark lines which may be noticed running downward on the two upper petals of the violet and pansy. These lines are called sshoney guides. and at the point where they meet in the heart of the flower the free lunch" is spread for the bees.
 Ants and other crawling things
 
 let, but they are so small they would not be likely to brush off and carry away the pollen, and they could not be depended upon to ferGhze the other violets., Therefore, the violet ba1S them from it's free lunch counter. Tho barrier to ants and other insects with- out wings is little wisp of hairs which grows in the violet's throat. To a mans eye these hairs are not formid- able even under the microscope, but to the ant they are an impossible dun- geon.
 There is a good reason, too, for the violet's habits of always looking down, and that reason is not innate modesty, as the poets have supposed. If the flower grew erect the rain and the wind might wash or blow away the pollen, and for that reason the flower droops.
 It might seem, at first glance, that things would be badly mixed up by these visits of bees and butterfies;- that the pollen of the violet would be shaken off on the pistils of the rose, and that all sorts of hybrids would be produced. As a matter of fact, there is little trouble. In the first place, the pollen of one flower has, as a rule, no effect on the piStils of an-> other species. Secondly, the various insects which serve as pollen carriers have each their own special favorites among the flowers, to which they prac- ticaly confne their attentions. In re- turn many flowers make special pro- visions for and offer special attrac- fions to certain kind of insect.
 There is the purple clover, for in- stance. It is fertilized almost exclu- sively by the humble bee, and in New Zealand, until humble bees were im- ported and made permanent residents, the purple clover had to be fresh sown every year with seed brought from England. Lacking the aid of the bun- ble bee, the seed of the native grown clover never came to maturity.
 In return for the assistance of the humble bee the purple clover has placed it's free lunch'' of nectar at the bottom of long blossom tubes, which are too deep to be reached by the short proboscis of the honey bee.
 By way of showing that he was not l above joke, Huxley, the great phil osopher, has demonstrated that there is a direct connection between the number of old maids in given locality and the quantity of purple clover in