4G4 ANNUAL RErOKT OF THE Off. Doc. 



it with the other red clovers. It is surer to "catch" than the red 

 clover, has a tendency to "stick" to the soil longer and makes a better 

 quality of hay than red clover alone. It produces fully as much 

 honey as the white clover and its quality is not to be excelled. If it 

 is grown for hay and for honey it will produce at least two good 

 crops every season. The seeds being much smaller than those of the 

 red clover a smaller quantity of seed is needed. A good mixture 

 to sow for hay is one part of Alsike with three parts of red clover. 



In some sections of the State buckwheat is the most important 

 yielder of honey. The quality of buckwheat honey is perhaps not as 

 good as that of the clovers or some of the other honeys. It is darker 

 in color, has a heavier body and a flavor peculiar to itself. It is 

 liked by some consumers and to others it is not so palatable. It 

 usually does not command as high a price in the markets and yet 

 there are some places where it brings as much as the finer grades of 

 honey. Buckwheat does not require a large application of fertilizer 

 nor even a rich soil to be a good producer of grain. It frequently 

 yields forty to fifty bushels per acre and instances are on record of 

 much larger yields. It is a quick crop and always leaves the soil in 

 a mellow condition. Many of the hillsides, too poor for other crops, 

 might be sown profitably to this grain merely as a grain crop. It 

 seldom fails as a honey producer and not infrequently gives immense 

 flows of honey. What farmer raising only a few acres of it would not 

 keep a colony of bees "'get and hold" all of his own? 



There are numerous other plants which in some parts of the State 

 are abundant enough to produce crops of honey, but in most localities 

 serve only to tide over the supply from one flow to the other. Among 

 these is alfalfa, another clover, which yields enormously in the West, 

 where in many places it is the chief source of honey. This plant, too, 

 will prove valuable to the beekeeper of the East after we have passed 

 the experimental stage of growing it. 



Another plant pressing itself into notice is Sweet Clover. This 

 plant was for some time condemned as a weed, and working its way 

 through years of prejudice, has attracted the attention of agricul- 

 turists and beekeepers as well. In growth it is similar to Alfalfa, 

 and while it is young closely resembles it in appearance. It blossoms 

 during a long season, producing a finely flavored grade of honey. 

 It is valuable as a forage plant and as a soil enricher and inoculator 

 it has no superior. ^ A report from Lancaster county states that it 

 was sown on a field infested with Canadian thistles in 1906, and 

 allowed to reseed itself until in the summer of 1910 it was an 

 almost impenetrable mass of leguminous matter five to seven feet 

 high. The Canadian thistles were crowded out. It will grow on 

 waste places, the hardest clay, stony dirt banks and the most barren 

 looking soil. Why not sow some of this seed on waste places, crowd 

 out obnoxious weeds, enrich the soil and make the air hum with bees? 



BEES AS POLLENATORS 



In the economy of Nature the bee doe« not only serve as a col- 

 lector of nectar but performs another most important work. In 

 order that fruit may be formed, fertilization of blossoms must take 

 place. This work is done either by insects or the wind. Some blos- 

 soms are staminate while others are pistillate. In order that fruit 

 may be produced the pollen must be carried from the one to the other. 



