BEE PASTURAGE. 



59 



CULTIVATION OF HONEY PLANTS. 



In all localities there will probably be found intervals during the 

 working- season when bees will find very little or even nothing to 

 gather, unless supplied by cultivation. When possible it is always 

 best to fill in such intervals with some honey pi educing plant which at 

 the same time furnishes some other product fruit, grain, forage, green 

 manure, or timber. The attempt to cultivate any plant for its honey 

 alone has not thus far been found profitable, in practice, however 

 promising it may seem theoretically. Catnip (Nepeto cataria), mother- 

 wort (Leonurus cardiaca], globe thistle (Echinops splicer oceplialus], 

 figwort (8crophularia nodosa), bee balm (Melissa officinalis), borage 

 (Borago officinalis). Rocky Mountain cleome (Cleome serrulata], ineli- 

 lot or sweet clover (Melilotus alba], and linden (Tilia americana) have 

 all been recommended repeatedly and tried here and there somewhat 



F IG . 45. Wagner s flat pea (Lathyrus sylvestris wagneri). 



extensively. But thus far the hope of securing a sufficient increase in 

 the crop of honey to pay for the cultivation of these plants has in all 

 cases had to be abandoned. With the appreciation in value of agri- 

 cultural lauds the prospects for the profitable cultivation of any crop 

 for honey alone are still further removed. Yet the writer is fully con- 

 vinced that in the future, especially in the older portions of our country, 

 eminent success in bee raising will require much more attention to the 

 furnishing of artificial pasturage for the bees, a close study, in fact, of 

 the bee flora of one's locality, and a systematic effort to supply the 

 deficiencies by sowing self propagating honey plants, and such as may 

 be cultivated with profit for other reasons besides their honey yield. 



Among those plants which have just been mentioned as having been 

 cultivated at various times for their honey alone, the linden for shade 



