File:The flower and the bee; plant life and pollination (1918) (14776057441).jpg

Identifier: flowerbeeplant00love (find matches)
Title: The flower and the bee; plant life and pollination
Year: 1918 (1910s)
Authors: Lovell, John Harvey, 1860-1939
Subjects: Fertilization of plants
Publisher: New York, C. Scribner's sons
Contributing Library: The LuEsther T Mertz Library, the New York Botanical Garden
Digitizing Sponsor: The LuEsther T Mertz Library, the New York Botanical Garden

View Book Page: Book Viewer
About This Book: Catalog Entry
View All Images: All Images From Book
Click here to view book online to see this illustration in context in a browseable online version of this book.

Text Appearing Before Image:
a very valuable sourceof honey; and one season full 60 pounds, on an average, to acolony was obtained. A very remarkable illustration of therelation of rainfall to the length of the corolla-tubes of red cloverwas observed by an apiarist at Medina, Ohio. One of hisapiaries was located near Medina, and another about two milesnorth of that city. A few years ago there was a drought atthe north bee-yard, and the floral tubes of the red clover wereso much shorter than usual that honey-bees were able to reachthe nectar. When one of the farmers began to cut his field ofred clover that season, the cutter knives of the mower stirredup so many bees that they attacked the horses and their driver.Singularly enough at Medina and the south bee-yard there wasan abundance of rain. The red clover made a luxuriant growth,and the floral tubes were so long that the bees could not obtainthe nectar, and consequently there were none on the clover-heads. Thus two bee-keepers, living only a few miles apart, 72
Text Appearing After Image:
Fig. 35. Red Clover. TrifoUum pratense A buiublebee-flower THE FLOWER AND THE BEE might have arrived at diametrically opposite conclusions as tothe value of red clover as a honey-plant. Three other genera of very common bumblebee-flowers maybe found in almost any old-fashioned garden. They are thelarkspurs (Delphinium), the aconites, or monks-hoods (Aconi-ium), and the columbines (Aquilegia). They all agree in hav-ing the nectar concealed in long spurs or nectaries, which varyin length in the different species. The tongues of the variousspecies of bumblebees also differ in length, ranging in theworkers from iV to \l of an inch. In the females, or queens,the tongue is still longer, and in the garden-bumblebee of Eu-rope reaches the length of ) § of an inch. Of our hardy perennials there are few which produce a morestately effect than the bee-larkspur (Delphinium elatum) withits wand-like racemes of deep-blue flowers. This plant is anative of Europe, where it is pollinated by the femal

Note About Images