EXPERIMENT STATION BULLETINS. 299 



their bees. The plant blossoms June 20 to August 20, a good time and 

 for a long season, were they valuable. 



In the winter we cleaned the seeds. Although previously warned and 

 consequently protected by veils and gloves, the barbed awns sought out 

 our eyes and skin everywhere. The pain caused was intense. All who 

 helped in the cleaning of the seed were in agony for several days. Even 

 this alone would or should preclude this plant from general use. To my 

 disappointment these plants seemed to exhaust themselves this first season. 

 The next season there were almost no blossoms, but new plants came up 

 very thickly from seeds scattered the previous autumn. This failure of the 

 plants to afford blossoms the third season from planting I know is not 

 always true, as I have had blossoms for four years from plants on sand. 

 It is probable that when the plants are very luxuriant and are allowed to 

 seed, we can only count on a single crop of blossoms. This season, the 

 fourth from planting, we had a rather feeble growth of plants. The grass 

 and weeds fought with the Echinops for the land and succeeded in so far 

 that we secured a very meagre quantity of bloom, and apparently no 

 valuable results in our honey crop. Thus the failure to bloom the first 

 year, the failure to secrete any large amount of nectar, the failure in many 

 cases to bloom the third year, and the inability to compete with grass and 

 other weeds without expensive aid makes it certain that if any plants will 

 pay for honey alone, this is not one of them. 



THE ROCKY MOUNTAIN BEE PLANT. 



This plant— Cleome integrifolia — has again been tried for the third 

 year. That it is a very superior honey plant and blossoms at just the right 

 time— all through July and August — is certainly true. But it is not 

 a very pushing plant and the seeds will not germinate unless exposed to 

 the weather for months. Thus it is necessary to plant in August or Sep- 

 tember of the previous year if we expect a fair stand of this plant. When 

 this is done, unless the land is very free from grass and weed seed, the 

 latter will get the start and our Cleome will be choked out. Thus I think 

 we have proved that Cleome is only suitable for planting in waste places 

 where, from its beauty and excellence as a honey plant, it rivals even 

 sweet clover. There seems little doubt but that we should secure much 

 honey from these plants were we to take the necessary pains to secure a 

 full stand of acres of vigorous plants, but this can be done only at large 

 expense, too large to ever pay in actual practice. 



RAPE. 



Knowing from the study of small plats which have been grown here for 

 years, that rape, Brassicce campestris var. colza, and the mustards seemed 

 especially attractive to bees, and knowing that the former was regarded 

 very highly by many farmers for pasture, especially for sheep, it was 

 thought advisable this season to sow several acres of ground to this plant. 

 Part of the land was light sand and part clay loam. As the plant blooms 

 in about four weeks after the seed is sown, we sowed the middle of June. 

 We are liable to have a severe drouth at this time, and this year was no 

 exception. Thus the seed failed to germinate well especially on the sand. 

 By the middle of July both fields were in full bloom. The bees did not 

 swarm on the flowers as we had hoped they would, nor did the honey pro- 



