Birds and All Nature, Vol. VI, No 4, November 1899

<h2><SPAN name="THE_BEE_AND_THE_FLOWER" id="THE_BEE_AND_THE_FLOWER"></SPAN> THE BEE AND THE FLOWER.</h2> <p class="ac">MRS. G. T. DRENNAN.</p> <div> <ANTIMG class="drop-cap" src="images/initial_v.jpg" width-obs="57" height-obs="70" alt="" /></div> <p class="drop-cap">VIRGIL, in his "Pastorals," beautifully alludes to the industry of the bee in culling its sweets from the flower. Perhaps we do not definitely know more of the mystery of the flower's secreting the nectar, and of the bee's making the honey, than was known in ancient times. There are differences of opinion on the subject. Darwin considers the honey secreted by the nectary to be the natural food with which the stamens and pistils are nourished. Others assert that the only use of honey with which flowers are supplied is to tempt insects, which, in procuring it, scatter the dust of the anthers and fertilize the flowers, and even carry the pollen from barren to fertile flowers. Linnæus considered the nectary a separate organ from the corolla; and every part of the flower which was neither stamen, pistil, calyx, nor corolla, he called a nectary; but what he called nectaries are at present regarded as modifications of some part of the flower; in some cases a prolongation of the petals, and in others an inner row of petals, or modified stamens adhering to the corolla. The term disk is now applied to whatever appendages appear between the stamen and pistil, formerly called nectaries. The form of the honey sac, or nectary, differs with different flowers. In the lily it is a mere cavity, or gland. In the honeysuckle a golden fluid is secreted at the end of the tube, without the sac. Few things in nature can be more beautiful than the nectary and the honey drops in the crown imperial. Each one is a shallow cup and pearly white. From each cup hangs a shining drop, like a tear. The tint of the cup gives the drop its hue and each one looks a splendid pearl fastened in the crown of each of the flowers of the crown imperial which, hanging down, only display the pearly honey drops when we look up into the flower. The buttercup is one of the most interesting flowers that secrete nectar. It belongs to the <i>Ranunculus</i>, or crowfoot family, which numbers many wild and some of the choicest of cultivated flowers. The nectar-cups are under the petals, and the mission of the flowers seems to be to feed the bees. It is well known that beyond the realm of romance and poetry the buttercup is a plant abhorred by the cow that gives the milk that makes the butter. The lovely yellow color of the buttercup no doubt suggested the name. Apiarists know that certain kinds of flowers make certain grades of honey. They know also that while the bee makes its honey from the flower, it will also make honey from sugar and molasses. The drainings of molasses casks are given the bee for winter food, and it is one of the unsolved mysteries how the bee makes its honey. The nectar in the flower is not honey. The bee makes the honey from what is abstracted from the flower, and also preserves life and makes honey from sweets that are given it for food. Buckwheat is an example of dark, rich honey and white clover and raspberry blooms of clear, translucent honey. Also the fact is, that abstracting the nectar in no wise impairs the beauty nor the fruitfulness of the flower. Instance the rich, productive buckwheat, how profusely it yields its flower; and raspberries ripen sweet and juicy from vines that have had the bees hovering over the snowy blooms from the time they open till the berries form. Honey bees are not always safe in their selection of flowers to feed upon, for Xenophon, in his "Retreat of the Ten Thousand," describes the honey of Trebizond as having produced the effect of temporary madness, or drunkenness, upon the whole army. Mr. Abbott, writing from the same country in 1833, says he witnessed the same effects of honey upon those partaking of it as Xenophon describes.</p> <p>This would indicate that the honey undergoes some chemical change in the making, as the bees, in these instances, were not injured by the flowers, yet the honey they made from them was injurious to man.</p> <hr class="chap" /> <p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</SPAN></span></p> <table class="sp2 mc w50" title="CANARIES."> <tbody> <tr> <td colspan="3"><span class="ac w100 figcenter"> <SPAN name="i_046.jpg" id="i_046.jpg"> <ANTIMG style="width:100%" src="images/i_046.jpg" width="461" height="600" alt="" /></SPAN></span> </td> </tr> <tr> <td class="xx-smaller ac w30">A. W. MUMFORD, PUBLISHER, CHICAGO.<br/> 284</td> <td class="x-smaller ac w40">CANARIES.<br/> Life-size.</td> <td class="xx-smaller ac w30">COPYRIGHT 1899, BY<br/> NATURE STUDY PUB. CO., CHICAGO.</td> </tr> </tbody> </table> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />