34 



fore setting off for the fields, and the appearance of the 

 drones foretelling the coming swarm. 



It is easy to see that the great value of the orchard to 

 the keeper of the bees lies in the added supply of nectar, its 

 abundance, the season at which it arrives and its delicious 

 quality; for the honey from the fruit bloom tastes as the 

 blossoms smell. Men may talk to me of honey from the wild 

 sage of Colorado, from the eucalyptus of California, from 

 alfalfa of the middle west, from the wild raspberry of 

 Michigan, from linden and clover or even from the wild 

 thyme growing in luxuriance on the slopes of Mt. Olympus, 

 but the nectar from the apple bloom in these New England 

 hills has an aroma all its own, superior to every other and 

 like to nothing else so much as to liquid sunlight in an or- 

 chard in bloom. 



To the beekeeper of any experience the greatest in- 

 terest centers in the sources of nectar, its abundance, the 

 duration of the flow and the season when it arrives. No 

 plant is too small, no tree too large, from the creeping Run- 

 away Robin of our gardens to the Basswood by the river to 

 escape the notice and calculation of the keeper of the bees; 

 who sends forth his messengers everywhither seeking in the 

 open bloom for the delicate sap that rises about the pistil 

 of the flower, where it is swept by the hairy tongue of the 

 bee into a tiny globule, pumped into the honey sac, and 

 borne homeward to the hive on wings as swift as beams of 

 morning light. Or if the young in the hive are calling for 

 food the fielders will visit the flowers for the pollen, robbing 

 the anthers of their baskets of pollen dust, raking it off with 

 the front legs and stowing it with restless hurry into the 

 baskets upon iho Irlnd legs, hastening back they will pack 

 it into the cells about the brood red, yellow and light green 

 like butter in tubs ready for the nurse bees to feed the young 

 with the water brought by the water carriers from the sand 

 by the brook ; for unlike the leaf eating insects whose young 

 are reared in the trees and feed upon the tender green, the 

 young of these wholly beneficent bugs are entirely reared in 

 the hive to our gain and not loss. 



Now to the bee-keeper who has watched the winter sup- 

 ply ol honey dwindle in the spring when the brood rearing 

 begiiis in earnest; who has noted too the loads of pollen 



