THE HONEYFLOW 49 



The following year it did not bloom so freely, but 

 the bees simply crowded to it, and I took from 

 one very forward colony twenty pounds of pure 

 hawthorn honey. 



Seasons vary very greatly, but usually there is a 

 gap of a fortnight after the hawthorn finishes 

 before honey begins to be stored in any quantity. 

 About the end of May or beginning of June the 

 white clover commences, and if favourable condi- 

 tions prevail, very large stores of nectar are brought 

 in from it. It lasts longer than any other crop, 

 sometimes, indeed, flowering twice, but for two 

 or three weeks the quantity of honey brought in 

 is simply astonishing to the uninitiated. In 

 a very good district, where the hives are right 

 in the middle of clover fields, it is not uncommon 

 for a colony to store ten pounds a day over and 

 above its requirements. And this for several days 

 in succession. As much as three hundred pounds 

 of honey have been stored by a single colony in 

 little over a month in a good season, while it is 

 considered nothing out of the ordinary to take 

 a hundredweight from colonies in good clover 

 districts. 



Perhaps there is no flower which the bees really 

 like so much as that of the lime tree. In my district, 

 when the limes blossom, the bees usually desert 

 everything else, and in our churchyard, where there 

 are several grand old trees, the noise of bees 

 humming there on a fine July morning is some- 



4 



