Planting for Honey. 



2 >| fv lHE BELIEF in the profitable- 

 ness of raising plants for honey 

 alone has been almost universal- 

 ly abandoned. When the yield 

 from clover or basswood reaches several 

 pounds per colony each day, it is not 

 surprising that bee-keepers should have 

 been led to consider whether it might 

 not be profitable to prolong the harvest 

 by planting something that would fill 

 the "gap" — furnish honey when the nat- 

 ural sources failed. The diflSculty seems 

 to have been that not sufficient thought 

 was given to the fact that immense quan- 

 tities of bloom are needed. Some flowers 

 yield honey so profusely that it may be 

 literally scraped out with a spoon. The 

 so-called Chapman honey plant is an ex- 

 ample. With a large apiary, however, 

 there must be acres and acres of bloom, 

 or no surplus will be gathered. I pre- 

 sume few bee-keepers have considered 

 the number of acres to which their bees 

 have access. In the March Review for 

 1888, Mr. R. Iv. Taylor gives the follow- 

 ing: "Letus suppose that one in a fair 

 field for the production of comb honey 

 has an apiary of 150 colonies, with no 

 other apiary to encroach. His bees, by 

 going lyi, miles in every direction from 

 home, would scour a territory of about 

 12,000 acres. With everything in good 

 order he may hope, in a good season, to 

 get a surplus crop of 10,000 pounds of 

 comb honey. At a low estimate, I think, 

 we may say there would be enough of 

 fruit bloom, clover, basswood and fall 



flowers within the territory indicated to 

 stock well 2,000 acres, but I will call it 

 1,000, and we have as the result, ten 

 pounds of surplus per acre, from land 

 well stocked with honey plants. Who 

 would let the value of that amount of 

 honey, say f 1.25, weigh very heavily in 

 deciding on the kind of crops with which 

 to stock his farm ?" 



Mr. James Heddon once said, in a 

 Chicago bee convention, that he would 

 have nothing to do with any plant that 

 furnished honey alone, even if each 

 blossom yielded a barrelful of honey, if 

 the plant required cultivation . Of course, 

 this is an exaggerated statement, but it 

 illustrates a point, and that is this: 

 Those who plant for honey must com- 

 pete, in the sale of their product, with 

 those who are at no expense in planting 

 for honey — with those who are . supplied 

 by nature with an abundance of pastur- 

 age. Every one who has ever tried cul- 

 tivating plants for honey alone has even- 

 tually abandoned it. I do not mean that 

 no honey has ever been secured in these 

 experimental ventures, but that the 

 quantity has been too small to allow of 

 any profit. A light yield of honey, un- 

 less it comes early in the season when 

 extensive breeding is desirable, may even 

 ' be a detriment. It will stimulate breed- 

 ing and more honey may thus be con- 

 sumed than is gathered, and workers 

 are brought into existence at a time when 

 they will be consumers instead of pro- 

 ducers. 



