WHAT BEES ACCOMPLISH.

Globe, Volume XXIV, Issue 2425, 13 January 1882, Page 4

WHAT BEES ACCOMPLISH.

"By far the moat aerioui difficulty in the process of honey collecting by bees (says a writer in "Good Words") arises from the extremely minute quantity of nectar which each flower yields, and from its being dilute—in some oases so poor in saccharine matter that its sweetness is not appreciable to the tongue. The strength of the sugary fluid "varies in different flowers, and even in the aamo flower at different times. Consequently the moat direct way of estimating the yield of honey is to aaoertain the aotual quantity of sugar in each flower. This can easily be done by chemical methods. If we take a large number of flowers, wash out their nectar, and determine the sugar in the solution, we can calculate from the number of flowers used the average amount of sugar in each flower with the greatest precision. Experiments oonduoted in this way showed each flower of the fuchsia to contain little more than the tenth part of a grain of sugar. In monkshood the amount was rather leas than the tenth of a grain, while in the everlasting pea it was found to be three-twentieths of a grain for eaoh flower. In smaller flowers the quantity is proportionately less. Thus •each flower of the little naturalised American water-blink only contains six-hundredths of a grain, and in those minute flowers which grow together in compact maaaes the amount was still smaller. A raceme, consisting of twenty flowers of the vetoh, only yielded five-hundredths of a grain, or a little more than one five-hundredth for eaoh floret. One head of common red clover gave a little over one-tenth of a grain (exactly .1224). Now eaoh head of clover contains about sixty distinct flower tubes, eaoh of which muat therefore have a portion of sugar not exceeding the one five hundredth pa:.-t of a grain. The proboscis of the bee must consequently be inserted into 500 clover tubes before one grain of Bugar can be obtained. There are 7000 grains in a pound, •o that for every pound of sugar prooured in this way 3,500,000 flower tubes must be ■emptied. Honey, however, only contains three-fourths of its weight of dry sugir ; so that every pound of honey is equivalent to more than 2,500,000 clover tubes sucked by the bees !

This shows what an amazing amount of labour they must perform. Their industry would appear to be indispensable to their <oiistonce. These amounts also reveal to what an extent the visitation of Howers must go on in the insect world, and help us to understand how it is that dowers are so dependent on insects for fertilization, so that we can well believe the forms of flowers to have been determined in reference to the insects frequenting them, sad that the colors of the petals may serve to attract insects by way of advertisement, as -colored bills attract the eyes of busy men. This view of the use of color and odor in flowers may seem to smack too muoh of trade and commerce, nerertheless it is the view to -whioh science now gives undivided support. We bare been to long accustomed to look on the beauty of the floral world as if it were exclusively for man's gratification, that it is difficult for us to believe that the delicately perfumed and showy petals of the rose or lily should be primarily intended for the benefit of the plant possessing them. But it must be remembered that each organism lives for itself, has its own laws, and does not possess any organ whioh is exclusively for the advan- i tage'of another.