144 AMERICAN HONEY PLANTS 



important sources of nectar, with a considerable number of minor ones 

 which furnish the bees with a. partial living between the main flows. 



As an example, a typical Iowa locality may be mentioned. There 

 white clover is the principal source of surplus honey. Now and then some 

 surplus will be gathered in the fall, also, from heartsease. Yet the list of 

 plants which yield nectar in that particular neighborhood is a rather long 

 one. Were it not for these minor sources, to provide for the bees before 

 and after the clover flow, beekeeping would hardly be possible there. To 

 begin the season, fruit trees, apples, cherries and plums, furnish a liberal 

 supply of nectar. These trees bloom early in spring when the bees are 

 still weak from the long winter. If it were possible for the beekeeper to 

 so conserve the strength of his colonies that they would come through 

 the winter in as good condition as they are in mid-summer, a good crop 

 of surplus honey would be gathered from fruit bloom in favorable sea- 

 sons. Following fruit bloom, the dandelions come. There are several 

 weeks of bloom from dandelion and the bees make the most of it. Consid- 

 erable nectar and an abundance of pollen are gathered from dandelion, only 

 to be used in brood-rearing. It takes a large amount of honey to rear a 

 big force of bees, and without strong colonies of bees profitable crops of 

 honey cannot be harvested. It takes honey, then, to make bees, and it 

 takes bees again to gather a big crop of honey. 



The dandelion continues to bloom, in some localities, until within a 

 short time of the opening of the white clover flow. In favorable seasons, 

 when the clover is abundant and weather conditions favorable, a liberal 

 crop may be expected from the clover. Following the clover there is a 

 long period when but little honey is coming from the field. In one neigh- 

 borhood the bees may be entirely idle, while a short distance away there 

 may be sufficient forage to support the colony. In the one location the 

 surplus gathered from clover will be consumed, in part, to support the 

 colony until the fall flow from heartsease; in the other the bees will gather 

 enough from minor plants to support them. The one locality thus becomes 

 a good one for beekeeping, while the other is poor, and perhaps they are 

 but a few miles apart. 



This is a fair example of general conditions. The locality may not be 

 in the clover region, but the presence or absence of the minor plants is 

 extremely important to the beekeeper who would support his family 

 from the products of his apiary. 



There are many locations where the presence of plants which yield 

 pollen abundantly are second in importance only to the plants which fur- 

 nish the main honeyflow. As an example, there are places along the Ap- 

 palachicola River, in Florida, where enormous yields of surplus honey are 

 sometimes secured from tupelo, but where there is so little pollen for the 

 rest of the summer that the bees suffer seriously for the lack of it. In some 

 places the beekeepers find it necessary to move their bees to other loca- 

 tions in order to maintain the strength of their colonies, following the 

 flow from tupelo. Thousands of colonies of bees have died in locations 

 where wonderful yields of honey have been harvested, because no pollen 

 was available to enable them to continue brood-rearing. 



