80 



Fig. 2. YELLOW BIRCH (Bclula lutea.) 

 St., staminate flowers; p, postulate flowers. 

 A wind |MilIinated tree producing large 

 quantities of pollen. 



pollinated and the pollen is so ad- 

 hesive that none of it is carried 

 away by the wind. Shake an alder 

 hranch in full bloom over a sheet of 

 white paper and it will be covered 

 with pollen; do the same with a 

 hranch of "pussies" and only a few 

 grains will fall. Many wild bees, 

 ants and flies, however, visit them. 

 A little later in the season the stam- 

 inate trees of the white willow will 

 be a great help. (Fig. 1). 



Bees not infrequently gather pol- 

 len from the alders, elms and other 

 wind-pollinated trees (Fig. 2), and if 

 you have an avenue of elms you have 

 little to fear from a dearth of pollen 

 early in the season. The maples are 

 far from being as gcod pollen plants 

 as the willows. "if only bees would 

 gather pollen from the fir spruce, 

 pine and running juniper they would, 

 for a while, be provided with an in- 

 exhaustible store. Beat a running 

 juniper bush witli a stick and the air 

 will be so filled with pollen that you 

 will be glad to retreat. The clouds 

 of pollen from tile pines are easily 

 mistaken for smoke. (Fig. 3.) The 

 pollen seems to be too resinous to 

 suit the taste of bees. During bloom 

 I lure is, of course, no lack of pollen 

 in the northern and western States 



i if herbaceous plants blooming in 

 May 1 know of none more valuable 

 for pollen than the dandelion. My 

 apiary is surrounded for about two 

 weeks with an almost unbroken 

 sheet of yellow flowers This 

 was obtained by permitting culti- 

 vated plants io produce seed. The 

 pollen is very abundant and easily 

 gathered, and the bees are i ■ m 

 stantly bringing it into the hives \ 

 more pleasant, cheerful display can 

 hardly be imagined, and many pcr- 



isk the privilege of digging 



IIS." 



The planting of corn by the mil- 

 lion acres renders it more important 

 as a source of pollen than any other 

 cultivated plant, and it blooms, more- 

 : a time when pollen flowers 

 are apt to be scarce It is wind-pol- 

 linated and wholly devoid of nectar. 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



Net of the mythical honeys "corn 

 honey" is the most famous. Only a 

 few months ago a report of a phe- 

 nomenal yield of corn honey came 

 from Louisiana. The flow continued 

 for more than a month; the corn- 

 fields swarmed with bees to an ex- 

 tent never before witnessed, and 

 good colonies averaged 100 pounds 

 or more from this source alone. 

 Corn honej is described as light am- 

 ber in color and pleasantly flavored;' 

 it had previously been supposed to 

 he dark and strong flavored. 



Think of it, 100 pounds of corn 

 honej per colony. Who will now be 

 surprised to hear of the sale of am- 

 brosia by the bottle? At a gathering 

 of beekeepers an apiarist still insist- 

 ed, after the structure of the bloom 

 had been described,* that his bees 

 brought in a little honey from corn. 

 It is claimed that the nectar is se- 

 creted by the silk and in the axils 

 of the leaves. Xow the silk is com- 



Fig. 3. BALSAM FIN (Abies bahamea.) 

 Staminate cones producing quantities of 



pollen. Iml the bees do not gather it. 



posed of the thread-like glutinous 

 stigmas, and it would not only he 

 useless but would be positively 

 harmful to the welfare of the plant 

 for them to secrete nectar, and as a 

 matter of fact they never do. 

 Whence come, then, the stories oi 

 corn honey? We have all seen bees 

 gathering pollen from the spindles oi 

 corn, and Frank C. Pellett says that 

 he has seen multitudes of them so 

 d. As plant-lice are some- 

 times found on the foliage or stalks 



oi '"Mi he suggests in "Productive 

 Beekeeping" that the gathering oi 

 honey-dew may have given rise to 

 these reports. This s^'ins not im- 

 probable, especially in a warm cli- 

 mate, ami would offer an explanation 

 ot the different qualities of corn 

 honey in different years. 



In many instances, however, "corn 

 ■ " is purely a product of tin- 

 imagination, like the "tub 1 ev" .if 



I alifornia. The tule is a wind pol- 

 linated sedge growing five to ten 



II < t tall, .iml covering some 500.000 



ol wel land; in the delta re- 

 gion of the San Joaquin and Sacra- 

 mento rivers there are estimated to 



March 



be 50,000 acres of tule. As there are 

 many beekeepers who suppose that 

 all flowers are nectariferous, it is 

 not surprising that they believe that 

 this great expanse of vegetation 

 must be the source of much honey; 

 but Richter very properly denies the 

 existence of "tule honej " 



Since both the wild and domestic 

 bees would speedily perish if de- 

 prived of pollen, it is astonishing to 

 note how little attention this subject 

 has received from the bee journals. 

 In looking over the indices I have 

 been surprised to find that in some 

 years there is not a singl,. entry un- 

 der pollen, while in others there are 

 only two or three, mostly notes re- 

 lating to pollen substitutes, or the 

 exclusion of pollen from the honey. 

 Pollen plants certainly grow in a 

 terra incognita of the beekeeper's 

 world, and pollen problems are left 

 largely to the bees. Yet they are 

 very vital questions, and nature has 

 spared no pains in equipping the 

 bees with apparatus and mental 

 qualities to deal with them. And in 

 the end what is vital to the bee is 

 vital to the beekeeper. 



The clovers, contrary to the gen- 

 eral impression, are not good sources 

 of pollen. In the white clover the 

 anthers, the organs containing the 

 nollen, are enclosed in a keel formed 

 by two petals and emerge only 

 when the bee's head rests upon it; 

 thus bees never gather pollen di- 

 rectly from the clover blossoms. 

 More or less of it is deposited on the 

 nnder side of the head or body by 

 the floral piston mechanism, which 

 the bee brushes up with its legs and 

 deposits in the pollen baskets I 

 have watched bees at work on white 

 clover day after day, but have never 

 yet seen one attempt to obtain the 

 pollen; and many of them had no 

 pollen on their hind legs, and, as a 

 rule, the masses of pollen in the bas- 

 kets were small. The pollen is al- 

 most invariably described as brown 

 or greenish brown, and on the bee's 



1 B ' BE \\ .( u w fabo I ' 



potted keel, and 

 i onsequi ntlj ither the pollen. 



1 1 belong i" iin -...in. i.u niU ,. thi i ivei 

 but by reason of its larger size shows more 

 clearly why bees can bring away only the 

 pollen the flower places on them. 



