1907 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



903 



ter. In ten days supers were placed on the 

 new hives, and when they were filled we pro- 

 tected ourselves with veil and gloves, and, 

 armed with a smoker, took up the honey. 

 There is now a large supply put away for 

 winter use. 

 Shiloh, N. J. 



CLOVER. 



Why it Does not Always Secrete Nectar. 



BY JAMES M. PULLEY. 



On page 1484, last year's volume, in your 

 footnote to one of Dr. Miller's Straws you 

 write: "It is not that nature is less lavish 

 than she used to be in secreting nectar, but 

 rather that there are too many bees for the 

 pasturage," and so account for the fact that 

 clover fails to yield a crop of honey in local- 

 ities that have previously given satisfactory 

 yields. 



My own Ojjinion, based greatly on obser- 

 vation, is that not clover alone but all other 

 vegetation has favorable as well as unfavor- 

 able seasons in growth and nectar yield, and 

 which I am not inclined to lay either to the 

 lack of lavishness of nature or to the over- 

 stocking of a given territory as suggested by 

 the editor, but to other causes. 



First of all, and touching the question 

 strongest, I would suggest that certain ele- 

 ments of soils have been exhausted by con- 

 tinuous cropping on one variety of crops — 

 for instance, crops that produce tvhite strav^ 

 are known to impoverish all soils to a great 

 degree, as are plants of the mustard family 

 —so much so that, in the preparation of 

 leases in several sections in England, a para- 

 graph is inserted prohibiting the growth of 

 a white-straw crop on the same land but 

 once in four years, while certain other re- 

 strictions are placed upon the growth or cul- 

 tivation of mustaixl. Wliite mustard may be 

 grown under certain conditions and restric- 

 tions, probably so as not to draw the I'ein too 

 tight on the tenant, as this crop is a good 

 paying one on light to moderate loam soils 

 with experienced husbandry. 



From the foregoing deductions it may be 

 drawn that I consider it has been man's lack 

 of method in treating the land under cultiva- 

 tion that has made the clovers and perhaps 

 some plants probably less free in the secre- 

 tion of nectar, which would seem to be borne 

 out from the fact that, the longer land has 

 been under cultivation and the influence of 

 the white man, the less likelihood is there of 

 being a How of nectar from clover. This is 

 particularly instanced hj the scarcity of clo- 



FIG. 3. — HIVING A SWAKM IN DANZENBAKEE HlVi.:^. 



