HUMBLE BEES AND BROAD BEANS.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 16614, 9 December 1919, Page 5

HUMBLE BEES AND BROAD BEANS.

to THE EDITOR. Sir,—Having received several lately respecting humuie bees destroying the Hovers of broad beaus, perhaps the following remarks on iho haous of tlieso insects may be of interest to some of your readers. 't hree species of humble bees wore introduced to Nevf Zealand 36 years ago for tho purpose of fertilising the flowers of tho red clover. Two of the three forms are highly beneficial lusocts while the third is a destructive marauder, anu a very serious menace to the successful cultivation of several garden and firm plants. Anyone who has noted the colours ■ ani habits of humble boos would observe that one form is black, a second dark brown with darked yellow bands, and a third palo brown with broad bright yellow bands. The latter species is the depredator. It is due to its having a very short tongue or proboscis with which it cannot reach the nectary of the flowers of broad beans and red clover by probing their staminal tubes in a natural way. "When visiting theso flowers and those of tho hyacinth they instinctinvely know that they cannot procure tho honey except by biting holes at the baso of the tubes, thus generally rendering the flowers infertile. The habit was known to tho elder Huber, a distinguished French naturalist, who wrote a work on European humble bees 135 years ago. Tho black and dark brown forms are frequently found in tho same nest, and are generally considered by entomologists to bo only varieties of one species. Both forms have a proboscis three-quarters of an inch long, which enables them to extract the nectar from these and other flowers they visit in a legitimate way. Tho introduction of this short-tongued humble bee was one of tho serious blunders of acclimatisation societies which is now almost impossible to overcome. A certain way of lessening their numbers is to destroy their nests wherever they occur.—l am, etc., w.w.s.