17 MAY 1930, Page 14

* * * * BEES AND COLOUR.

Do bees judge chiefly by sight or scent ? Lately, in one garden, at any rate, they were peculiarly busy on two highly coloured flowers : the aubretia and the ribes or wild currant. The first has little scent, but the hues that especially please the bee. The other flower smells very little different from its own leaves ; and the pungency, which informs all parts of the plant, is not, to our nostrils, of the character of honey- scent. It is (by way of corroboration) the only plant whose scent, so far as I haye noticed, attracts any attention from a dog. At any rate, my dog frequently gives it an uneasy sniff as he passes. So, perhaps, here, too, it is chiefly the colour rather than the scent that draws the hive bees.

W. BEACH TROIKAS.