BEES AND COLOUR

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 90, 13 October 1923, Page 14

BEES AND COLOUR

FAVOURITE FLOWERS THEY

VISIT.

Romance is the keynote of the animate universe, writes John C. Craven in "The Open Road." In our own lives it exercises a dominant and airpowerful influence, and if wo descend through a million varied organisms to the lower and less intricate forms of life, we shall still find it. In the plant world we have the tender maiden flower opening her petals to the sun, and using all manner of coquettish arts—colour, perfume, and honey—to attract the love-messenger, the bee, to lier bosom. All the beauty we see in tl ir blossom is not placed there for our acWration. It is there because it has a l, definite process of reproduction. 'Flowers vary in colour ani smell according, to the kinds of insects they want to attract. The favourite colours of the honey bee are blue, violet, crimson, purple, and deep violet blue particularly the last named Butterflies and humble bees are, very partial to scarlet which is also a favourite of the hum-ming-bird. Night-flying insects favour white and yellow—a circumstance easily accounted for, since the deeper coloured flowers become invisible as twilight falls. 1" lies and beetles which frequent dungheaps are drawn to greenish-yellow and brownish-yellow flowers. Wasps, which are so partial to decayed fruit, seem to have a predilection for dark brown; and carrion flies are most susceptible to pale fawn, red, and dirty violet, the prevailing tints of decaying flesh. Odorous flowers are of two kinds, fragrant and oflensive. The former are chiefly visited by bees, and the latter "by carrion flies and dung beetles. There are some plants which, though colourless to man appeal to the olfactory organs of insects. Such are the flowers of the Virginia creeper, in which we can detect no scent j but they must have some scent which is apparent to bees, otherwise it would be impossible to account for the readiness with which they find the flowers, which are insignificant in size and green in colour, and quite indistinguishable among the leaves.