July. 1913. 



American Hee Journal 



a large part of their winter stores. 

 Though the name of the bee-keeper 

 was not given, I do not doubt his sin- 

 cerity. Others have also reported that 

 bees sometimes store honey from In- 

 dian corn. Corn is a grass, and all the 

 grasses are wind-pollinated (e.xcept a 

 few which are self- fertilized). It would 

 be of no advantage to them to produce 

 nectar. The " spindle " is composed of 

 staminate blossoms, which produce 

 pollen; while each kernel of corn is a 

 flower with a very long style (the silk). 

 There is not a trace of nectar in either 

 kind of flower; the stigmas, or that 

 part of the style which receives the 

 pollen, are more or less sticky or glu- 

 tinous, but this is a very different thing 

 from producing nectar. I do not be- 

 lieve that all the bees in New England 

 ever gathered an ounce of nectar from 

 cornflowers. Corn honey is a product 

 of the imagination. Honey-bees do, 

 however, collect pollen from the spin- 

 dles, as I have myself noticed, and it 

 may be that this habit has given rise to 

 the belief that they obtain nectar. 



But drops of water, when the air is 

 humid as in the evening, do e.xude from 

 young leaves of corn. These drops 

 stand in rows, and as they are e.x- 

 creted under conditions similar to 

 those which are favorable for the pre- 

 cipitation of dew, may easily be mis- 

 taken for dew drops. Exudation of 

 water by the leaves of plants is by no 

 means restricted to Indian corn, but 

 occurs also in nasturtium, many tropi- 

 cal plants, and plants growing in moist 

 situations. It is of benefit because it 

 permits the surplus of water to escape, 

 when the air is so moist that it cannot 

 be removed in the normal way by 

 evaporation (transpiration). 



The drops appear at the ends of the 

 veins and are forced out by the pres- 

 sure of the accumulated water within. 

 There are often pores in the leaves 

 suitable for this purpose. The liquid 

 is almost pure water, containing only 

 one percent of salts, so that it cannot 

 be used by bees as a substitute for 

 nectar. Perhaps bees in need of water 

 may sometimes suck up these drops, 

 but they are excreted only at special 

 times. 



A somewhat similar myth is current 

 in the States on the Pacific Coast, 

 where a species of very abundant sedge 

 is believed to be the source of " tule 

 honey." The tules grow higher than a 

 man's head and form great marshes, 

 sometimes traversed by a maze of 

 water channels. A season or two ago 

 two young men in a small motor boat 

 became lost in one of these swamps in 

 Oregon, and did not escape until the 

 third day. They suffered greatly from 

 hunger, as they did not know that tule 

 roots are "good to eat." Finally they 

 abandoned their boat, and mashing 

 down the tules to prevent sinking into 

 the swamp, they crawled on their 

 hands and knees for nearly a mile to 

 the main land, which they finally 

 reached in a state of utter exhaustion. 



In his work on the " Honey Plants 

 of California," M. C. Richter says, 

 "Honey-buyers often refer to honey 



gathered along the Sacramento and 

 San Joaquin rivers as ' tule honey.' ' 

 But he expresses the belief that there 

 is no such honey. This is undoubtedly 

 correct, for all the species of the great 

 family of sedges are pollinated by the 

 wind, the flowers are nectarless, and 

 are visited only occasionally in the 

 case of some species for pollen. 



Oak and hickory trees, and hazel- 

 nut bushes are also sometimes re- 

 ported as good honey plants; but the 

 flowers of all three are wind-pollinated 

 and produce no nectar. The leaves of 

 various species of oaks and hickories 

 are, however, sometimes covered with 

 honey-dew. The storing of this sweet 

 excretion of plant-lice might easily 

 give rise to the belief that the bees 

 were bringing in nectar. 



While it is very evident that progres- 

 sive apiarists, as a whole, are studying 

 the honey-flora more carefully- than 

 ever before, there still remains many a 

 bee-keeper who never gives any atten- 

 tion to the honey-plants of his neigh- 

 borhood, and to whom the wild flowers 

 always remain strangers. 



" Primroses bs' the river's brim 

 Dicotyledons are to him. 

 And thev are nothim; more." 



He asserts, not incorrectly, that the 

 bees know more about the flowers than 

 he does, and so leaves the whole matter 

 to them. But if a great abundance of 

 nectar-bearing flowers, for example, 

 should come into bloom some 3 miles 

 from the apiary, would it not be worth 

 while to know whether the bees found 

 the flowers promptly, or whether they 

 found thtm at all. It would certainly 

 be desirable to prevent such an ovei- 

 sight. Too often, if there is only a 

 small surplus of honey, he does not 

 know whether the fault is with the bees 

 or with the honey-flora. 



Then, again, there are some bee- 

 keepers who appear to look upon 

 flowers as created or evolved solely for 

 the benefit of bee-culture. They are 

 slow to realize that there are blossoms 

 which are nectarless, or which contain 

 nectar inaccessible to honey-bees. Ac- 

 cordingly we find, from time to time, 

 bird flowers, bumble-bee flowers, but- 

 terfly and moth flowers, pollen flowers, 

 and wind-pollinated flowers reported 

 as excellent honey plants. That a 

 flower should produce nectar plenti- 

 fully, but at the bottom of a tube so 

 long that honey-bees cannot reach it, 

 seems to them an evidence, as a Yan- 

 kee once remarked, that " Providence 

 was kind, but careless." Nature fash- 

 ioned the wild flowers before the human 

 race appeared upon the earth, and they 

 would not have been one wit different 

 today had the appearance of mankind 

 been deferred to some distant future. 



There is a very general impression 

 that a large flower garden is an excel- 

 lent bee-pasture. 



" I suppose," said one of my custo- 

 mers as he was leaving, "that your bees 

 get a .large part of their honey from 

 your flower garden." 



"No," I replied, "a great many culti- 

 vated flowers are of no value to bee- 

 keepers." 



"Why," said he, " I supposed that al 

 flowers yielded honey." 



Close to my apiary is the largest 

 specimen of the bush honeysuckle 

 {/.oiineni lalaiica) that I have ever 

 seen. When in bloom it is literally a 

 small hillock of flowers. They are 

 bumble-bee flowers, and the bumble- 

 bees visit them in large numbers; but 

 honey-bees cannot reach the nectar 

 though they gather the pollen. This 

 hardy shrub is widely used in hedges 

 and on lawns. 



Not far away is a vine of the climb- 

 ing honeysuckle {Loniccra pericly- 

 meinim). The flowers are hawk-moth 

 flowers, and expand at nightfall, when 

 they exhale a most pleasing fragrance. 

 The first evening the corolla is white, 

 and the stamens stand directly before 

 the entrance to the flower; on the sec- 

 ond evening the color changes to yel- 

 low, the stamens bend downward out 

 of the way, and the stigma moves up- 

 ward before the entrance — this is an 

 arrangement to prevent self-fertiliza- 

 tion. The hawk-moths come in num- 

 bers, and as they poise before the flow- 

 ers might easily be mistaken for hum- 

 ming birds. I once saw a leaf-cutting 

 bee trying to reach the nectar, but it 

 soon desisted, as its efforts were useless. 



As you enter my garden there are 

 two large clumps of Sweet William 

 {Oianlhiis harbaltis) : they are butter- 

 fly flowers. The brilliant variegated 

 corollas, and the sweet fragrance, are 

 familiar to you all. The calyx tube is 

 a little over half an inch in length, too 

 long for the tongue of the honey-bee. 

 But I have seen honey-bees visit clus- 

 ter after cluster of flowers; one of 

 them thrust its tongue down the tube, 

 probed between the petals, and even 

 looked under the corolla, but it could 

 not obtain the nectar. Subsequently 

 the bees remembered their futile visits, 

 and did not often return. 



The bee larkspur (Delphinium claluni), 

 the columbine i^Aqitilcgia znilgaris), and 

 the monkshood {Aconitum napelhts) are 

 all bumble-bee flowers, and of no use 

 to the apiarist. I have seen a honey- 

 bee push its tongue into the spur of the 

 bee larkspur 3s far as possible, but the 

 nectar was quite beyond its reach. A 

 couple of blue petals had fallen on 

 green foliage leaves, and a honey-bee 

 was seen to inspect each of them, show- 

 ing that it perceived color. Nectar is 

 very abundant in the long spurs of the 

 columbines, and in the white variety 

 can readily be seen through the trans- 

 lucent sides. So long as the spurs re- 

 main intact honey-bees gather the pol- 

 len, but do not often seek to obtain the 

 nectar. But every season bumble-bees 

 bite holes in the nectaries in order to 

 get the nectar more easily ; the honey- 

 bees promptly discover these punc- 

 tures, and use them freely to rob the 

 flowers. 



The commonest of garden flowers, 

 the nasturtium, has a nectary so long 

 that honey-bees cannot reach the nec- 

 tar, and so tough that bumble-bees 

 cannot puncture it, so the honey-bees 



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