THE FLOWER AND THE BEE 



To-day bumblebees benefit the islands of New Zealand 

 annually to the extent of many thousand dollars. Fields which 

 were almost barren in their absence now produce great quan- 

 tities of seed. At Canterbury 26 acres of red clover were the 

 resort of thousands of bumblebees, and yielded 400 to 500 

 pounds of seed per acre. In one province alone, in 1912, 610 

 acres were sown with red clover, which it is estimated yielded 

 an average of 158 pounds to the acre. 



The nectar of red clover is secreted at the base of a floral 

 tube a little over 9 mm. long, where it is beyond the reach 

 of honey-bees, which have a tongue only about 6 mm. in length. 

 Under normal conditions, then, honey-bees do not resort to 

 the red-clover fields; but occasionally in very dry weather the 

 floral tubes become so short that large yields of honey are ob- 

 tained. Two or three times during the past thirty years at 

 Borodino, N. Y., red clover has been a very valuable source 

 of honey; and one season full 60 pounds, on an average, to a 

 colony was obtained. A very remarkable illustration of the 

 relation of rainfall to the length of the corolla-tubes of red clover 

 was observed by an apiarist at Medina, Ohio. One of his 

 apiaries was located near Medina, and another about two miles 

 north of that city. A few years ago there was a drought at 

 the north bee-yard, and the floral tubes of the red clover were 

 so much shorter than usual that honey-bees were able to reach 

 the nectar. When one of the farmers began to cut his field of 

 red clover that season, the cutter knives of the mower stirred 

 up so many bees that they attacked the horses and their driver. 

 Singularly enough at Medina and the south bee-yard there was 

 an abundance of rain. The red clover made a luxuriant growth, 

 and the floral tubes were so long that the bees could not obtain 

 the nectar, and consequently there were none on the clover- 

 heads. Thus two bee-keepers, living only a few miles apart, 



