Sec. 10.] BEES, AND THE PROFITABLE PRODUCTION OF HONEY. 1G7 



" I would here impress upon the minds of all bee-keepers the importance 

 of cultivating a field in turnips eaeli year. In the fall gather in all the large, 

 fine ones, either for marketing or for feeding sheep and cattle during the 

 ■winter, for which they are very valuable, and will well repay the expense of 

 raising them ; enough small ones will be left standing in the ground over 

 winter to make a rich field of pasturage for the bees in the spring, leaving 

 the ground in fine condition for a crop of buckwheat, or to sow down in wheat 

 in autumn, or to again put down in turnips. 



" The various kinds of blackberries, and the wild or bird cherry (cerasus 

 serotina), yield honey, and serve to supply to some extent the interval above 

 referred to. We have also a species of kale, or wild turnip, which if sowed 

 very early in the spring will commence to bloom toward the latter part of 

 May, and is very valuable. 



" Raspberries of all kinds yield an immense amount of honey, and con- 

 tinue blooming, giving a succession of fresh flowers, for about three weeks. 

 But few if any flowers produce such quantities of lioney as the raspberry, in 

 proportion to the number of flowers. 



" Catnip, mother-wort, hoarhound, honey-suckles, and various other kinds 

 of flowere, put forth about the same time ; each would be of great value, if 

 in sufficient quantities. • 



" Then come other early summer flowers. At the head of this list pre-em- 

 inently stands white clover {irifolium repens), which is found along the road- 

 sides, in meadows, grain-fields, gardens, pasture-fields, in fact, it may be seen 

 everywhere. The seeds, which are very abundant and very small, are 

 driven in every direction by the winds ; this has been overlooked by previous 

 writers. The heads, which contain the seed, are quite small and very light ; 

 the stalks stand erect imtil winter sets in and the ground is frozen, by which 

 time the stalk of it has become brittle, and every wind breaks off and rolls 

 along the ground a portion of these little seed-pods, until they meet some 

 obstruction ; here they will germinate. Thus they are scattered in every 

 direction. I have frequently seen them driven furiously on the crust of a 

 shallow snow, through which the heads would project. The value of this 

 clover is entirely underrated as a pasture for cattle or horses, as well as bees; 

 it is always selected by stock in preference to the red clover. Tiie honey 

 gathered from it is of the highest excellence, both in beauty and' flavor ; and 

 I believe in good seasons, all the bees, in any neighborhood where it 

 abounds, could not gather the fourth part, so great is the (juantity pmduced. 



"The tulip-tree (liriodtnJron), or poplar, as it is called by some, by others 

 white wood, is a great producer of honey. Nothing of the tree kind tlmt I 

 have ever seen exceeds it ; the flowers expand in succession, are of a bell- 

 like shape, mouth upward. In dry, warm weather I have seen a teaspoonful 

 of pure honey or saccharine matter in a single cup or flower. Bees work 

 upon it with the same vigor they manifest when carrying honey from somo 

 other hive, or when it is fed to them. 



"The yellow and black locust trees yield large quantities of honey. 



