. The natural history of the farm : a guide to the practical study of the sources of our living in wild nature . Natural history. WHAT GOES ON IN THE APPLE BLOSSOMS 215 the little halictus and the honey-bee, settling upon the stamens, spreads them, with her feet and pushes head down- ward between until her not very long proboscis reaches the nectar in the cup below. Bees are the most important pollen distributors for apple blossoms: the larger ones seek both nectar and pollen; the lesser ones, pollen only. .Bees go about the work in a brisk business-like way, passing rapidly and directly from
. The natural history of the farm : a guide to the practical study of the sources of our living in wild nature . Natural history. WHAT GOES ON IN THE APPLE BLOSSOMS 215 the little halictus and the honey-bee, settling upon the stamens, spreads them, with her feet and pushes head down- ward between until her not very long proboscis reaches the nectar in the cup below. Bees are the most important pollen distributors for apple blossoms: the larger ones seek both nectar and pollen; the lesser ones, pollen only. .Bees go about the work in a brisk business-like way, passing rapidly and directly from flower to flower, visiting many in rapid succession and gleaning their food products thoroly. They are little disturbed by a person quietly watching them. Perhaps the possession of a sting may have something to do with this assurance of man- ner. At any rate, the sting- less visitors of the apple blossoms, true flies and butterflies, behave very differently. They flit Fig. 84. A syrphus fly (Syrphus americanus, * , â , * after Metcait). y *â y * about nervously, mak- ing circuitous flights between visits, and manifesting great wariness. A hand- some banded syrphus-fly (fig. 84) settles lightly upon the stamens and laps up a little -pollen with his proboscis and is away again, being gone before one has discovered that he is taking flight. A pretty nimble bee-fly darts up to a flower, makes a thrust or two at the nectar-cup with its exceedingly slender proboscis, and is away again. A fine butterfly soars overhead, and finally settles upon a flower cluster as if by accident, and sits there languidly dipping the tip of his uncoiled proboscis into such nectar cups as are in reach. Having greater length of proboscis than the apple flower demands, he swings it around like a dipping- crane. But he also darts away at the passing of a Please note that these images are extracted from scanned page images that may have been digitally enhanced for readability - coloration and appe
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, booksubjectnaturalhistory, booky
