126 AMERICAN HONEY PLANTS 



HONEYDEW. 



Such material as the bees may store as honey, which is not secured 

 from the nectaries of plants, is usually spoken of as honeydew. There 

 are numerous exudations of plants which attract the bees and which can 

 hardly be regarded as nectar, to which the term honeydew may well be 

 applied. 



The main source of honeydew, however, is from insects rather than 

 from plants. Aphids, scale insects and leaf hoppers yield this sugar in 

 great abundance. These sucking insects are often found on various trees 

 or plants in large colonies, feeding on the sap; while bees and ants gather 

 to feed upon their excretions. At times aphids are so abundant that they 

 eject honeydew in such quantity as to cover the leaves on lower levels 

 with the sticky substance, till the drops give the impression that it might 

 have rained. The bees gather honeydew readily in the absence of a nat- 

 ural honeyflow, carry it to the hive and seal it in their combs the same as 

 iioney. 



The quality of most honeydew is inferior and it brings a low price in 

 the markets, being in most demand for baking purposes. Since there is a 

 much larger percentage of gums in honeydew than in honey it makes a 

 poor food for winter stores. The excess matter clogs the intestines of 

 the bees, and where they are confined on such stores for long periods 

 without an opportunity for cleansing flight, a heavy mortality results. 



There are hundreds of references to honeydew in the beekeeping lit- 

 erature. A few are given here to indicate the extent to which bees gather 

 this insect product: 



"The most copious flow of honeydew I ever saw was in 1897. It 

 was from the pine. In early morning and late in the evening it could 

 be seen dripping from the leaves, till all the leaves and even the bare 

 ground beneath them were covered with the nectar. The bees 

 swarmed over the trees and the hives were filled as I had never seen 

 them before. The honey was light amber and of fine flavor, and gave 

 my customers the best of satisfaction. While this flow was on, there 

 was scarcely any honeydew to be found except on the pines, and every 

 pine was dripping with it." — C. C. Parsons, Alabama. American Bee 

 Journal, page 546, 1899. 



"We have had the heaviest honeydew flow ever known in this 

 part of the State. We have tons of the stufif." — Scholl. American Bee 

 Journal, August, 1910. 



"My bees stored a quantity of honeydew which granulated in the 

 combs as fast as stored." — South Carolina. American Bee Journal, 

 August, 1910. 



"Of 250 colonies of bees in this town last fall there are not more 

 than 20 left. It is not the winter that kills the bees, but poor honey. 

 Honeydew is half an inch deep all over my honeyhouse floor; it soured 

 and ran out of the combs where I packed up my hives. The bees will 

 not touch the horrid stufif, nor can I get a swarm to go into a hive 

 with one frame of it on one side, and good clean combs and frames 

 of brood for the rest." — Vermont. American Bee Journal, page 458, 

 1904. 



