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 _Ranunculus_, 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.
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.
[Illustration: A. W. MUMFORD, PUBLISHER, CHICAGO.
CANARIES.
Life-size.
COPYRIGHT 1899, BY
NATURE STUDY PUB. CO., CHICAGO.]