Many years ago I was struck with the fact that humble-bees as a general rule perforate flowers only when these grow in large numbers near together.  In a garden where there were some very large beds of Stachys coccinea and of Pentstemon argutus, every single flower was perforated, but I found two plants of the former species growing quite separate with their petals much scratched, showing that they had been frequently visited by bees, and yet not a single flower was perforated.  I found also a separate plant of the Pentstemon, and saw bees entering the mouth of the corolla, and not a single flower had been perforated.  In the following year (1842) I visited the same garden several times:  on the 19th of July humble-bees were sucking the flowers of Stachys coccinea and Salvia grahami in the proper manner, and none of the corollas were perforated.  On the 7th of August all the flowers were perforated, even those on some few plants of the Salvia which grew at a little distance from the great bed.  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. (11/19.  ‘Nature’ January 8, 1874 page 189.) They thus waste much time in searching many empty flowers, and are led to bite the holes, so as to find out as quickly as possible whether there is any nectar present, and if so, to obtain it.