AMERICAN HONEY PLANTS 221 



"For about ten days my bees have been bringing in honey from the 

 second crop of red clover. Now this is nothing remarkable, for I have 

 seen them doing so for more than twenty years past; but recently, 

 passing through a field of red clover in bloom, I stopped to watch them, 

 and, to my surprise, found them working, not on the blossoms, but on 

 the leaves. This, I confess, I had never seen before. On closer exam- 

 ination I found the clover leaves covered with small plant lice, and the 

 under leaves covered with honeydew, very similar to that frequently 

 found on the leaves of the hickory, oak and other trees, though the 

 honey is not so dark-colored as from leaves of trees." 

 On page 839 of the American Bee Journal for 1906 is found a rather 

 convincing discussion of the subject of honey from red clover. It was at 

 a convention of the National Association, and several men of wide reputa- 

 tion took part in the discussion, and testified to the fact that they had se- 

 cured surplus from red clover. Hutchinson stated that he had secured 500 

 pounds from red clover at a time when there was nothing else in bloom, 

 and that it was a light amber or dark white color. Messrs. Townsend, 

 Stone, Davenport and others agreed that they had secured red clover 

 honey, Townsend reporting as much as 2,000 pounds stored in two weeks' 

 time. 



The subject is discussed at length in Bulletin No. 46 of the New Zea- 

 land Department of Agriculture, by Isaac Hopkins, whose experience in 

 this connection is interesting. We quote him in part : 



"In my early days of beekeeping it was a moot point whether Ital- 

 ian bees worked on red clover or not. At this time I had a unique op- 

 portunity of testing the matter thoroughly, an opportunity which 

 would rarely occur; therefore, I feel myself on safe ground when deal- 

 ing with Italian bees and red clover. 



"For five years (1882-87), I was located on the late J. C. Firth's 

 estate at Matamata, where I started large bee farms. My bees, which 

 were chiefly Italians, were near to thousands of acres of red clover. 

 * * * Now and again we saw a few here and there gathering pollen 

 from the blossoms, and sometimes a good deal of pollen from red clo- 

 ver was brought in when, no doubt, it was scarce elsewhere. 



"In order to make a thorough test, I shifted, on one occasion, a 

 number of strong two-story colonies to the center of a 700-acre pad- 

 dock of red clover. The first crop had been cut for hay, and the sec- 

 ond crop flowers were just opening. There was no ordinary bee for- 

 age anywhere near. After the fourth day, I examined the hives and 

 found from the odor that came from them on removing the covers that 

 some nectar had been gathered from the surrounding clover. I also 

 observed that some clover pollen had been stored. 



"There were two seasons out of the five when my bees worked 

 more freely on the red clover than in others. In these seasons it was 

 noticeable that myriads of small-sized moths flitted about the clover, 

 while they were rarely seen at other times. I was much interested, and 

 in casting about for a reason, I became satisfied, after very many tests, 

 that the red clover was secreting at times much more nectar than 

 usual, and it may have been that it reached a higher level in the tubes 

 on these occasions, and so came within reach of the tongues of the 

 bees. Be that as it may, some red clover nectar was gathered from sec- 

 ond crop flowers in these seasons." 



While the dififerent observers are by no means agreed as to the reason 

 why the bees are able to get nectar from red clover on occasion, the tes- 

 timony is very closely agreed upon the fact that it is only from the sec- 



