272 MONEY IN BEES IN ATISTEALASIA 



as being one of our best and simplest medicines. Dairy- 

 men say, if cows eat Horehound it will taint milk and 

 butter. Sheep farmers complain that the seeds are a 

 pest to their wool." 



Honeysuckle (Native). (Banksia). In Western 

 Australia these bloom in February and March and are 

 of some small assistance in keeping colonies going until 

 White gum comes at the beginning of April. The 

 Waratah (Telopea) and Silky Oak (Orevillea) and 

 Hakeas belong to the same order as the Banksia, 

 Proteacece. There are about 600 Australian species and 

 in spite of the name no large crops are ever reported. 

 Some years ago a bee-farmer placed an apiary in a forest 

 of Honeysuckle on the South Coast of Victoria, but the 

 venture was a failure. It is to the indigenous forests 

 of Eucalypts that Australia must look for big honey- 

 crops. 



Lucerne, (Medicago sativa). The Spaniards and 

 Americans call this plant Alfalfa. It is widely grown 

 throughout the Australian Commonwealth. With the 

 introduction of irrigation huge areas of land that pre- 

 viously were of no use to the apiarist now give large 

 crops of beautiful pale honey. That this plant can always 

 be relied upon to fill the supers is not true. In those 

 localities (e.g., Tamworth, New South Wales), where the 

 cultivation is undertaken for raising seed, bees have the 

 benefit of the entire flowering period, so that a crop of 

 honey is almost assured. 



When grown for hay or pasture bees make little 

 surplus. The practice of cutting the Lucerne crop just 

 as the purple bloom opens is almost universal. Bee- 

 keepers reap no benefit from such areas. Mr. Pender, of 

 West Maitland, New South Wales, for years past has had 

 eight miles of lucerne flat on one side of his apiary, and 

 for six years has not had one extracting from this source. 

 This is owing to cutting the crop at the flowering stage. 

 At Tamworth, New South Wales, Messrs. Adamson and 

 Phillips are situated in the midst of a seed-growing 

 district, and their annual crop of Lucerne honey runs 



