March, 1921 



GLEANINGS IN B E K C r F. T U \i E 



T 



HE ff r ;i t 

 Linn aeus 

 oiicp wrott' 

 of tlie openiiiii; 

 of a flower, ' ' 1 

 saw God in His 

 glory p a s s i n i;' 

 near me, a n d 

 Itowed my head 

 in worship." 



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zi 



Beekeeping as a Side Line 



1 



Grace Allen 



Any man wlio lias let his heart keep pace yiehliiio- jilaiit .spreads 



with his head in his study of iiow^ers will of tons of the most excellent lioney. ft 



157 



blossoms a ii d 

 makes a soft 

 white cover for 

 the earth. All 

 thru the east 

 and north of our 

 great country 

 and our great 

 neighbor Canada 

 this nectar- 

 produeing hundreds 



repeat the words of the old Swedish botan- 

 ist, while he, too, bows his head in worship 

 before the marvel and the beauty of a 

 flower. 



If he be a beekeeper, tho he will love all 

 flowers, he will gradually develop an espe- 

 cial interest in those that bear nectar for 

 his bees. And what a list that is! There are 

 almost countless flowers that help in the 

 economy of the hive, many of them yielding 

 such small amounts as to be scarcely noticed 

 by tho beekeeper, yet in the aggregate con- 

 tributing substantially to the bees' income. 

 Learned and careful observers have varied 

 greatly in the attempt to estimate the 

 amount of honey consumed in a year by an 

 average family of bees. One of the lowest 

 estimates, however, if not the lowest, is 200 

 pounds. It takes an immense quantity of 

 nectar to make 200 pounds of honey; it calls 

 for millions of trips to the fields and count- 

 less flowers to be visited. And in addition 

 to what is gathered for its own needs, the 

 average colony in the hands of a skillful op- 

 er.ator will yield a surplus of from fifty to 

 several hundred pounds of honey. 



There is a popular misconception, how 

 ever, outside the ranks of beekeepers them- 

 selves, as to the value of such flowers as 

 those we cherish in our own gardens, roses, 

 daffodils, dahlias, nasturtiums, and all the 

 lovely array. Often a person who has just 

 thought of the possibility and pleasure of 

 keeping bees wall exclaim enthusiastically. 

 "And I have the loveliest yard for them! 

 All sorts of flowers!" It may be a lovely 

 yard to keep them in, in that it makes a 

 (diarming setting for the hives, but the 

 nmount of nectar in even a large garden is 

 not enough to be considered. It requires 

 great stretches of nectar-bearing flora to 

 yield enough to make even a few colonies 

 surplus-producers. Yet there are very few 

 places where one or two colonies will not 

 flourish. For in nearly every locality there is 

 at least one important and fairly depend- 

 able source of nectar, in many localities 

 there are several, and in some favored spots 

 there is almost a continual flow. 



Probably the honey plant that is most 

 important over the widest ar^a is white 

 clover, the little creeping Dutch white clo- 

 ver. This springs up of itself, -making a soft 

 green cover over [lasture and lawns, road- 

 aides and commons, until May comes swing- 

 ing her baskets of beauty across the land: 

 then the white clover puts out its millions of 



crosses the Mississippi, running west for a 

 state or two, and crosses the Ohio, running 

 south for a state or two. But along these 

 edges of its habitat, it blooms with less 

 wealth of profusion and less wealth of nec- 

 tar, too. 



Thruout the irrigated sections of the 

 mighty West, alfalfa, a first cousin of white 

 clover, becomes the main source. One strange 

 thing about alfalfa is that east of the Mis- 

 sissippi it is of little or no value for nectar. 

 But what fine-flavored alfalfa honey from 

 the West crosses the Father of Waters by 

 the carload] 



Sweet clover is wdiat we may call a com- 

 ing honey-plant. It is already here, exten- 

 sively, yet it is still coming. For it is grow- 

 ing constantly more popular with both farm- 

 ers and beekeepers. It flourishes in the 

 white-clover region, the alfalfa region, in 

 the South — in fact, almost anywhere. It 

 has lived down a bad reputation it never 

 deserved. A noxious weed it was once 

 called, but now agricultural stations vie 

 with one another in adding to our informa- 

 tion regarding its possibilities. It has one 

 characteristic that endears it to beekeepers. 

 Tho taking most kindly to a limestone soil, 

 it easily takes root and grows tall and rank 

 when sown along roadsides and railroad 

 cuts. The honey of sweet clover is so spicy 

 and pungent that many an uninformed pur- 

 chaser has accused it of being artificially 

 flavored with cinnamon or vanilla. 



In California the sages are the chief de- 

 pendence, the sages and the citrus trees. 

 There are white sage and black, purple sage 

 and still others. And sage honey and orange 

 iioney are deliciously worthy of California. 

 In Texas and the great Southwest are mes- 

 ((uite, catclaw, huajilla, and other honey 

 ]ilants unknown in other parts of the coun- 

 try. In Florida and her immediate sister 

 States are citrus trees, gallberry (holly), 

 <^upelo, sour gum. and that mightv yielder. 

 black mangrove, killed or tragically injured 

 a. quarter century ago by an unforgettable 

 freeze from which it has scarcely yet re- 

 covered. And in its own proper but varied 

 sections is cotton, with nectar not only in 

 its blossoms, but also in "extra -floral nec- 

 taries" under the flowers and leaves. 



One of the first things the new sideline 

 beekeeper will need to learn will be what 

 nectar-bearing plants are in his own locality, 

 and when they bloom. His "locality" as a 

 ])eekeeper will lie the area visited by his 



