The flower and the bee; plant life and pollination . se thewhole upper portion of the tube was cut away, leaving the lipssuspended by a mere thread. Hundreds of spurs of the w^ildbalsam (Impatiens hiflora) are perforated on the under-side;sometimes there are several holes, in other cases a single the punctures are once made honey-bees rob the flowersas well as bumblebees, making about ten visits per minute. The garden-columbines secrete nectar very plentifully. If aflower of the white variety be held so that the light shinesthrough its translucent tissue, the nectar may be seen fill
The flower and the bee; plant life and pollination . se thewhole upper portion of the tube was cut away, leaving the lipssuspended by a mere thread. Hundreds of spurs of the w^ildbalsam (Impatiens hiflora) are perforated on the under-side;sometimes there are several holes, in other cases a single the punctures are once made honey-bees rob the flowersas well as bumblebees, making about ten visits per minute. The garden-columbines secrete nectar very plentifully. If aflower of the white variety be held so that the light shinesthrough its translucent tissue, the nectar may be seen filling atenth of an inch of the hollow spurs or nectaries. Both thepurple and white varieties are punctured by observed a bumblebee, after a fruitless endeavor to 98 THE GATHERING OF THE NECTAR obtain the nectar, bite a hole in the spur; and afterward itpunctured the flowers visited without any preHminary have noticed three distinct incisions, one above the other,on a petal of this plant. The first was over half an inch from. Fig. 50. Fly-Honeysuckle. Lomcera ciliata A bumblebee-flower; in their haste to obtain the nectar bumblebeesoften puncture the corolla the tip of the spur, well up on the expanded part of the tube;the second was lower down, and the third still nearer the the upper puncture was too far distant to permitthe tongue of the bee to reach the nectar, and to rectify thismistake the other holes were made lower down. 99 THE FLOWER AND THE BEE Although honey-bees freely rob the nectaries after they havebeen punctured by bumblebees, they are probably not ablethemselves to bite holes in them. On August 14, 1909, thevines of the scarlet runner in my garden were a blaze of and bumblebees were constantly coming and go-ing, but not one of them visited the flowers in the normal was a hole on the under-side of every nectary; and thebees went directly to these holes, out of which they easily suckedthe nectar. T
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