SOCIETY OF CENTEAL ILLINOIS. 259 



But in a good honey year the bees will not taste a grape i£ they are 

 mashed and spread out for them. 



It don't make any difference what we engage in, we have to bear 

 expenses and losses. Farmers have to keep their teams well fed from 

 the products of the farm, and wear and tear of tools are kept up from 

 the same source; but neither can be dispensed with. So if the bee 

 does more good than harm, there is no other way but to give them 

 the freedom of the patch, for they can't be fenced against. 



Most of us know that white clover here, is the great honey plant. 

 From the time the first head is seen in the Spring till the last in the 

 Fall, they are covered with the honey bee, and you can't find a 

 healthy head that is not full of seed, while our common red clover 

 don't seed at all the first crop, but always the second. This can be 

 accounted for in this way: The bumble bee is the only insect that 

 gathers honey from it. I have examined the blossoms of both the 

 first and second crops, and can see no difference in them. The pistils, 

 stamens, and pollen are as perfect in the first as the last. The honey 

 bee is ready, in full force, for the first white clover that comes out. 



You may notice the first crop of common red clover in bloom ; 

 you will not see anything taking out the honey, while there is plenty 

 of it there — you can decide that by putting a head in your mouth 

 and sucking it. The secret is this : Mrs. Bumble Bee don't set up 

 housekeeping till the last of May, or first of June, and then all 

 alone; and don't get her offspring reared in time for the first crop of 

 blossoms. I will say right here, if anyone in the house knows 

 where she spends her time through the winter, they may add a new 

 page to natural history. 



Alsike clover is between white and red clover for size, and bees 

 work on it the same as the white, and the first crop is the seed crop. 



Our Mammoth is the largest and latest, and the blossoms are so 

 late that the young bumble bees have gotten to work, and the first 

 crop of the common has been cut, and has not rebloomed, and they 

 are confined altogether to the Mammoth, except scattering heads in 

 pasture fields, and it is mostly well seeded. Mr. Darwin has covered 

 white clover with a screen, just fine enough to exclude the bee, but 

 not fine enough to exclude the air or sun, and found it would not 

 seed. The query with many is, does fruit need insects to assist in 

 fertilizing. Of all berries, the strawberry is the most imperfect and 

 is the least visited by the honey bee, while the raspberry is covered, 

 from morn till night, as long as a blossom remains, and you don't 

 see any imperfect ones from the lack of fertilization. You can see 

 it in the apple and cherry. They visit the former much more than 

 the latter, and apples are not so bad to shed their blossoms as the 

 cherry. We will suppose that each tree and plant supplied enough 

 pollen to vitilize its own fruit; we think the cross from one individual 

 to another, is a great advantage, and that it is done better by insects 

 than any other way. We can't depend on the wind ; it may blow 



