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Gardeners Chronicle p 582 Salvia Patens br said to be sucked by Honey-Bees

Another week after last, the one Pentstemon was bored by Bees yet at other pla the beds

5 weeks after publication of article article — the few flowers of Stachys coccinea got bored: there are but few flowers on top of twigs or the great bed of Penstemon, & not one of them now bored & saw rather small yellow Humble-Bee go in at mouth.— The bed with few (some score) is now in case of single plant.— The few flowers on the single plant I again observe are mostly bored — I saw large plant of Salvia Grahami some few of which were also bored through calyx & corolla on under side of flower & opposite to place where orifice originally was  the greater number unbored.=

[Insertion:] (on other plant a few also bored on under side & on none on upper side) +++

+++ (yet 5 weeks ago no plant in garden was so unusually)

I saw a good size Humble flying with quickening from one to the other.

All these facts look as if it was the Hurry skurry in sweet flowers as Penstemon, but necessary in the Salvia Grahami — a pity I have not ascertained identity of Species = (Hive Bees giving the hole in Penstemon shows no relation of size of flowers & insects)

55v]

A fortnight after date of art in Chron. saw bees at full work on bed of Penstemon & Stachys the proportion of hive bees to humble or Penstemon was reserved to what it was. The single plant of Penstemon continued unbored & I saw very big humble, clumsily forcing his way into one flower, also one of the 2 plants of Stachys I found unbored. In walking about garden found many Anterinums [Antirrhinum] unbored, therefor went to big bed & even there found most unbored. (These were new flowers) & saw 2 or 3 kinds of humbles forcing their way in at mouth & returning covered with pollen. One biggish humble crawled into 2 or 3 flowers which I afterwards found were bored, which he evidently did not know. A gent there said he had seen bees boring Menziesia polyfolia (Irish)

Dr Coulter has seen facts in Ireland.

[Whiting, J. B. 1841. Salvia patens. Gardeners' chronicle, no. 36: 582: "Salvia patens makes a splendid bed. The flower-spikes should be cut off for a time, and the young shoots regularly pegged down till they nearly cover the bed, when the flowers will be produced so numerously as to form one mass of intense blue. I have seen the honey-bee extracting honey through a hole in the tube of this flower, in the way described by Mr. Darwin.—"]