Nectar

“ Then, wreath the bowl
With flowers of soul,
The brightest wit can find us;
We'll take a flight
Towards heaven to-night,
And leave dull earth behind us.
'Twas nectar fed
Of old, 'tis said,
Their Junos, Joves, Apollos;
And man may brew
His nectar too,
The rich receipt's as follows:
Take wine like this,
Let looks of bliss
Around it well be blended,
Then bring wit's beam
To warm the stream,
And there's your nectar, splendid!
So wreath the bowl
With flowers of soul,
The brightest wit can find us;
We'll take a flight
Towards heaven to-night,
And leave dull earth behind us. ”

“ He inspires
Their balmy odours, and imparts their hues,
And bathes their eyes with nectar, and includes
In grains as countless as the sea-side sands,
The forms with which he sprinkles all the earth. ”

“ Is the bee more sentient than the flower? Or, is the flower which provided the nectar and placed the nectar-guides just at the right place on the bright blossoms, as special allurements for the senses of the bee, the more to be admired for its intelligence? One by one the bee opens the flowers, which were so fresh and beautiful at sunrise. When he goes to his nest in the grass at evening, they will all have been drained of their nectar, and the petals will be wilted by the sun. ”

“ The hot sun, beating down on the well-tended vineyards, drew the nectar of the earth to the grapes, brushed them with a delicate bloom ere they fell beneath the feet of the winepressers to yield the juice that made the feasters merry. ”

“ When, attracted by either of these significant characteristics,—color or fragrance,—the bee alights upon the blossom, it is sometimes guided to the very spot where the nectar lies hidden by markings of some vivid color. Thrusting its head into the heart of the flower for the purpose of extracting the secreted treasure, it unconsciously strikes the stamens with sufficient force to cause them to powder its body with pollen. ”

“ At nectar-getting he is as clumsy as at stinging. He sprawls over a flower, pushes here and there among the delicate organs, and gets himself thoroughly bedaubed with pollen. This clumsiness makes him a good marriage-priest for the flowers. The color of the laurel attracts him, and the nectary promises honey. He lights, gets his legs entangled among the stamens, and as he jostles them they spring from their little pits with a sharp snap and scatter their pollen over his back. In visiting another flower some of the pollen will find its way to the stigma and thus secure cross-fertilization. ”

“ We know that this orchid is but the half of itself, as it were; that its color, its form, however eccentric and incomprehensible, its twisted inverted position on its individual stalk-like ovary, its slender nectary, its carefully concealed pollen—all are anticipations of an insect complement, a long-tongued night-moth perhaps, with whose life its own is mysteriously linked through the sweet bond of perfume and nectar, and in the sole hope of posterity. ”

“ O, fair hope! everchanging, never, never true! for delightful as the reality may be, how far does it fall short of the expectation! The nectar we have longed to quaff no sooner reaches our lips than it becomes embittered! ”

“ For them a conspicuous landing place has been provided in the more highly colored lower lobe of this flower, from which the visitor cannot fail to find the pocket full of nectar that swells the base of the tube but when he alights, pollen laden from another blossom, he must pay toll by leaving some of the vitalizing dust on the projecting stigma before he feasts and dusts himself afresh. ”

“ Unlike its far more showy, decorative cousin the arrow-head, this wee-blossomed plant, whose misty white panicles rise with compensating generosity the world around, bears only perfect, regular flowers. Twelve infinitesimal drops of nectar, secreted in a fleshy ring around the center, are eagerly sought by flies. As the anthers point obliquely outward and away from the stigmas, an incoming fly, bearing pollen on his under side, usually alights in the center, and leaves some of the vitalizing dust just where it is most needed. ”

“ The nectar gathered by bees passes directly into a receptacle, the honey-sack or honey-stomach, which is used for that purpose only. It does not go the same road as the bee's food. The notion that bees swallow the nectar and then unswallow it is as erroneous as it is unappetizing. The flavour, body, and colour of honey depend on the source of the nectar, the age, the amount of chemical change wrought by the bees, and the completeness of the ripening process which goes on in the hive before the cells are capped. Honey is a very wholesome sweet, far more easily digested than cane or grape sugar. ”

“ Stale tastes the nectar here, the ambrosia stale,
⁠The ethereal flavor lost, the aroma flown.
And so the gods condemn me here to stand
⁠Thirsting within the stream that from me flees,
Hungering 'mid fruits ambrosial that my hand
⁠Forever vainly reaches out to seize. ”

“ On the fifth of these nectars the Sâdhyas live, with Brahman at their head. True, the Devas do not eat or drink, but they enjoy by seeing the nectar.
2. They enter into that colour, and they rise from that colour. 3. He who thus knows this nectar, becomes one of the Sâdhyas, with Brahman at their head; he sees the nectar and rejoices. And he, having entered that colour, rises again from that colour.
4. So long as the sun rises in the north and sets in the south, twice as long does it rise above, and set below ”

“ As soon as it tastes of the honey all buzzing is at an end. Similarly all noise of discussion ceases when the soul of the neophyte begins to drink the nectar of Divine Love in the Lotus Feet of the Almighty. ”

“ That nectar which has been obtained by churning the infinite ocean of the Vedas, into which Brahmâ, Vishnu, Shiva, and the other gods have poured their strength, which is charged with the life-essence of the Avataras—Gods Incarnate on earth—Shri Ramakrishna holds that nectar in his person, in its fullest measure! ”

“ To ever have within reach the beautiful, immaculate comb, or the equally grateful nectar, right from the extractor, is certainly a blessing of no mean order. We may thus supply our families and friends with a most necessary and desirable food element, and this with no cloud of fear from vile, poisonous adulterations. ”

“ Flitting about from tree to tree with great rapidity, they thrust their long extensible tongues, pencilled with honey-gathering hairs, into the tubes of many big tropical blossoms. The lories, indeed, live entirely on nectar, and they are so common in the region they have made their own that all the larger flowers there have been developed with a special view to their tastes and habits, as well as to the structure of their peculiar brush-like honey-collector. ”

“ They think they are just doing their duty in gathering nectar to make honey and pollen for bee-flour, but in dipping their heads down into the deep calyx where the nectar is stored, they get their furry bodies covered with pollen, and when they come out of that flower, or go to visit another, they spread pollen all over the stigma of the pistil! ”

“ By a very moderate computation—such an orderly plan of bloom lends itself to simple statistics—the average production of a fairly crowned tree is over a gallon of nectar per day. Hundreds of trees so crowned brighten all parts of the island with their red rays. And where the nectar is, there will the sun-birds be gathered together—a sweeter notion, truly, than carcases and eagles. ”

“ And a slave warmed by thee as a lion is bold.” Nectar, the poetical drink of the gods, was a sort of wine made near Olympos in Lydia, by mingling with the juice of the grape a little pure honey and flowers of delicate fragrance. ”

“ Bees, wasps, flies, butterflies, and beetles could not be kept away from an entertainer so generous; for while the nectar in the deep, tubular brown florets may be drained only by long, slender tongues, pollen is accessible to all. ”

“ Great are the works of the Lord, says the wise man; we cannot consider them without ravishment. The Distillatory Plant is one of these prodigies of nature, which we cannot behold without being struck with admiration. And what most surprises me is the delicious nectar, with which it has often supplied me in so great abundance to refresh me when I was thirsty to death and unsufferably weary.... But the greatest wonder of it is the little purse, or if you will, a small vessel, as long and as big as the little finger, that is at the end of each leaf. ”

“ Those which literally set their caps for color-loving bees and butterflies whose long tongues could easily drain nectar deeply hidden from the mob for their special benefit, assumed gay hues, speckling the inner side of their spreading divisions, even providing lines as pathfinders to their nectaries in some cases, lest a visitor try to thrust in his tongue between the petal-like parts while standing on the outside, and so defeat their well-laid plan. ”

“ Alas, for the tiny creatures that try to climb up the rosy tufts to pilfer nectar, they and their relatives are not so innocent as they appear! While the little crawlers are almost within reach of the cup of sweets, their feet are gummed to the viscid matter that coats it, and here their struggles end as flies' do on sticky fly-paper, or birds' on limed twigs. ”

“ But in the deep tube of each floret there is nectar secreted for the flying visitor who can properly transfer pollen from flower to flower. Such a one suffers no inconvenience from the prickles, but, on the contrary, finds a larger feast saved for him because of them. Dense, matted, wool-like hairs, that cover the bristling stems of most thistles, make climbing mighty unpleasant for ants, which ever delight in pilfering sweets. Perhaps one has the temerity to start upward. ”

“ But Sprengel, a most careful observer, thoroughly searched many flowers of O. latifolia and morio, and could never find a drop of nectar; nor could Krünitz [17] find nectar either in the nectary or on the labellum of O. morio, fusca, militaris, maculata or latifolia. I have looked to all our common British species and could find no trace of nectar; I examined, for instance, eleven flowers of O. maculata, taken from different plants growing in different districts, and taken from the most favourable position on each spike, and could not find under the microscope the smallest bead of nectar. ”

“ Its blossoms appear before its leaves, and are a most brilliant crimson. The flowers flaming forth, attract innumerable insects. The bee, for instance, in quest of honey, is drawn to it. But searching the petals for nectar, it imbibes a fatal opiate. ”

“ Little birds, with unusually long and attenuated bills, playing, fluttering, lisping, courting, and apparently sucking the heady nectar from the snowy and ivory cups, while poised like animate gems on the wing. ”

“ Let us now turn to the nectar-feeding insects in our imaginary case: we may suppose the plant of which we have been slowly increasing the nectar by continued selection, to be a common plant; and that certain insects depended in main part on its nectar for food. I could give many facts, showing how anxious bees are to save time; for instance, their habit of cutting holes and sucking the nectar at the bases of certain flowers, which they can, with a very little more trouble, enter by the mouth. ”

“ It is holy, beneficial to the gods, and is the great source of nectar; without limits, inconceivable, sacred, and highly wonderful. It is dark, terrible with the sound of aquatic creatures, tremendously roaring, and full of deep whirl-pools. ”

“ It has but one mission. All its fragrance, all its nectar, all its beauty of form and hue are but means towards the consummation of the eternal edict of creation—"Increase and multiply." To that end we owe all the infinite forms, designs, tints, decorations, perfumes, mechanisms, and other seemingly inexplicable attributes. Its threshold must bear its own peculiar welcome to its insect, or perhaps to its humming-bird friend, or counterpart; its nec [Pg 229] taries must both tempt and reward his coming, and its petals assist his comfortable tarrying. ”

“ Most of the members of each community are active and roving in their dispositions, and show no tendency to undue distension of the nether extremities. They go out at night and collect nectar or honey-dew from the gall-insects on oak-trees; for the gall-insect, like love in the old Latin saw, is fruitful both in sweets and bitters, melle et felle. This nectar they then carry home, and give it to the rotunds or honey-bearers, who swallow it and store it in their round abdomen until they can hold no more, having stretched their skins literally to the very point of bursting. ”

“ The bees make this honey out of the watery nectar, and I will tell you how they do it. The bee sips this sweet nectar into its mouth, then the nectar goes down a tiny tube into a little pouch called the honey sac. This sac opens into the stomach, but between the two are little lips which guard the entrance. If the worker is hungry the little lips open, and the nectar goes from the honey sac into the stomach. But if it wants to carry it back to the hive the lips stay tightly closed. When the honey sac is full the worker flies back to the hive and empties it into one of the rooms. ”

“ They make the sign just as attractive as they possibly can for the particular kind of insect they wish to come to them to eat.
They use the loveliest colors and the most delightful odors, which please the bees, the butterflies, the moths, more than they please even you and me, by their wonderful beauty and fragrance.
Nectar
The food they give the bee is—no, Mary Frances, it is not honey, it is nectar, out of which the bees make honey. ”