stopping to hover nearby. They observed
that the bees became less wary after
visiting a flower for a few minutes,
and seemed to become "drunk" or intoxicated
in some manner.
Dodson and Frymire suLggested that
bees were detecting and absorbing
some substance by the "brushes" which
are found on the front legs of euglossine
males. Vogel (8) made similar
observations and presented evidence
that the bees might be depositing some
substance in their inflated hind tibiae.
He did not attach mnLch sianificance
to this and sug^^gested that the flowers
were mimicking the sexual odors of
the female bees and that the flowers
were morphologically simulating the
bee's nest cells. He suggested that the
males arrived in search of females and
scratched on the surface of the flower
in frustration when no female couLld be
found; however, the systematic and
continuLed brushing of the bees at specific
places on the flower does not lend
itself to the idea of "scratching in frUstration."
Similar observations on flowers
of other plant families which produce
the same frgraance components
as orchid flowers also weaken this idea.
For example, Spatilipli l//urn cauntiaefoli/unl
(Dryand.) Schott, A lt/liuriiin
spp. (both in the Araceae), Gloxiniia
per-ezlnis (L.) Fritsch and Dryr0onia
turria/v ae Hanstein. (both in the Gesneriaceae)
elicit the brushing behavior
by the bees (9). After further observations
Vogel was convinced (as were
we) that the bees were gzatheringt some
substance which they placed in their
hind tibiae, he called this Dluftstofi or
"odor substance" (8) and suggested
that the males were utilizing it as a
borrowed pheromone to assist in marking
their territories or to attract females
by adding it to their own tibial secretions.
OuLr observations suggest odor
mlarking, but the flowers never attract
female bees. If the odor suLbstances are
uised unmodified, as a borrowed pheremone,
it must be for a different purpose
than sexual attraction of female bees.