On the 21st of August only a few flowers on the
summits of the spikes of both species remained fresh, and not one of
these was now bored. Again, in my own garden every plant in several rows
of the common bean had many flowers perforated; but I found three plants
in separate parts of the garden which had sprung up accidentally, and
these had not a single flower perforated. General Strachey formerly saw
many perforated flowers in a garden in the Himalaya, and he wrote to the
owner to inquire whether this relation between the plants growing
crowded and their perforation by the bees there held good, and was
answered in the affirmative. Hence it follows that the red clover
(Trifolium pratense) and the common bean when cultivated in great masses
in fields,--that Erica tetralix growing in large numbers on
heaths,--rows of the scarlet kidney-bean in the kitchen-garden,--and
masses of any species in the flower-garden,--are all eminently liable to
be perforated.
The explanation of this fact is not difficult. Flowers growing in large
numbers afford a rich booty to the bees, and are conspicuous from a
distance. They are consequently visited by crowds of these insects, and
I once counted between twenty and thirty bees flying about a bed of
Pentstemon. They are thus stimulated to work quickly by rivalry, and,
what is much more important, they find a large proportion of the
flowers, as suggested by my son, with their nectaries sucked dry.
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