Evening capital. (Annapolis, Md.) 1884-1910, 1901-07-11
v V Y y x Y Y x y. Y. v Y ~ Y. "
Free Lunches for Bees
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in three-acre grove of big oaks and
hickories. Under the trees the grass
grows thick and is everywhere starred
by hundreds of bSue and yellow violets,
buttercups, wild strawberry blossoms,
trilliums and a dozen other blossoms.
These are the first flowers of a back
ward May, and have a 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. 1t is early in the year that the
flowers peculiar to each locality APP
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 fortified by the
honey bee, which, while sucking honey
from one blossom, gets its body Gov
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 at
tract the bee, whose services IL so
much needs, the violet has put on
bluish-purple dress. Careful expert
ments have proved that the honey bee,
like Julius Caesar, is especially fond
of purple. But the advertisement of a
purple dress and of the sweet odor
which is borne abroad by the breeze
would not be enough of itself to in
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 inn
possible to get it without brushing
against the pollen-laden stamens.
Moreover, the violet further adver-
tises the exact location of its store of
hidden sweets by the delicate dark
lines which may be noticed running
downward on the two upper petals
of the violet and pansy. These lines
are called "honey 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
would like to eat the honey of the vio-
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 fertilize the other
violets. Therefore, the violet bars
them from its free lunch counter. The
barrier to ants and other insects with
out wings is a little wisp of hairs which
grows in the violet's throat. To a
mans eve these hairs are not formid-
able even under the microscope, buC
to the ant they are an impossible dun
geon.
There is 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.
1t might seem, at first glance, that
things would be badly mixed up by
these visits of bees and butterflies;
that the pollen of the violet would be
shaken off on the pistils of the rose,
and that all sorts of hybrids would
there is little trouble. In the first
place, the pollen of one flower has. as
rule, no effect on the pistils of an
other species. Secondly, the various
insects which serve as pollen carriers
have each their own special fayorites
among the flowers. to which they prac-
ticaly confine their attentions. In re-
turn many flowers make special pro-
visions for and offer special attrac-
tions to a certain kind of insect.
There is the purple clover, for in
stance. 1t is fortified almost exclu-
sively by the humble bee, and in New
Zealand, until humble bees were inn
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 bum
BILE 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 its "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
above a joke. Huxley, the great phil
osopher, has demonstrated that there
is direct connection between the
number of old maids in given locality
and the quantity of purple clover IN