426 A Modern Bee-Farm 
return of at least 43 per acre (clear of incidental expenses) 
for hay each year, may be regarded as all profit, where the 
owner’s bees work on the clover, and his milch cows are 
pastured after mowing; with largely increased milk yields 
in consequence of this mineral dressing. 
Honey is a truly wonderful gift of Nature, and stands 
almost alone as a pure natural sweet. There are very 
many people who have the impression that bees make 
honey ; and the term usually applied by authors to the 
domesticated honey-bee— Apzs mellifica *—is in accord with 
that belief, which may be allowed to pass as half the truth. 
Flowers secrete nectar under the action of the atmosphere 
upon the juices of the plant in connection with the chemical 
constituents of the soil from which its roots extract 
nourishment ; and this process is continued daily during 
favorable weather, until the bee, while gathering such 
production, is the means of mixing the pollen of different 
flowers, almost invariably of the same kind; and thus 
being fertilized and the plant made capable of reproduction 
by seeding, the object of the sweet attraction is accom- 
plished ; the flower fades, and the nectaries are dried up. . 
Nectar as gathered is next digested and otherwise 
manipulated by the bees, and so converted into true honey 
as we use it; just as sugar syrup may be turned to honey 
after treatment by the same workers. 
The starchy substances of plants are converted into 
sugar under a naturally maturing process, just as we know 
the same routine takes place in the ripening of fruits. 
In the case of nectar, heat is the great.ripening and 
productive agent, the quantity also being largely determined 
by the available chemical constituents of the soil. A high 
temperature always ensures a rapid secretion and flow 
* “ Abis mellifica” refers to the bee as a honey-maker; the term 
Apis mellifera as a honey bearer. 
