7K 



from the apiary on all sides, which gives ;ui area ot about -1,500 acres for the 

 supply of the apiary ; and if the latter consists of a hundred hives, producing 

 an average of 100 lb. of honey, there would be a little more than 2 lb. of 

 honey collected off each acre in the year ; or, if we suppose so many as two 

 hundred hives to be kept at one place, and to produce so mucli as 10 tons 

 of honey in the season, the quantity collected from each acre would be 

 4 lb. to 5 lb. 



PROPORTION POSSIBLY CONSUMED BY STOCK. 



Let us next consider what proportion of those few pounds of honey 

 could have found its way into the stomachs of the grazing stock if it had 

 not been for the bees. It is known that during the whole time the clover 

 or other plants remain in blossom, if the weather be favourable, there is a 

 daily secretion of fresh honey, which, if not taken at the proper time by 

 bees or other insects, is evaporated during the midday heat of the sun. It 

 has been calculated that a head of clover consists of fifty or sixty separate 

 flowers, each of which contains a quantity not exceeding one fi.ve-hundreth 

 part of a grain in weight, so that the whole head may be taken to contain 

 one-tenth of a grain of honey at any one time. If this head of clover is 

 allowed to stand until the seeds are ripened it may be visited on ten or even 

 twenty different days by bees, and they may gather, on the whole, one, or 

 even two, grains of honey from the same head, whereas it is plain that the 

 grazing animal can only eat the head once, and consequently can only eat 

 one-tenth of a grain of honey with it. Whether he gets that one- tenth grain 

 or not depends simpty on the fact whether or not the bees have exhausted 

 that particular head on the same day just before it was eaten. Now, cattle 

 and sheep graze during the night and early morning, long before the bees 

 make their appearance some time after sunrise ; all the flowering plants 

 they happen to eat during that time will contain the honey secreted in the 

 evening and night-time ; during some hours of the afternoon the flowers 

 will contain no honey, whether they have been visited by bees or not ; and 

 even during the forenoon, when the bees are not busy, it is by no means 

 certain that they will forestall the stock in visiting any particular flower. 

 If a field were so overstocked that every head of clover should be devoured 

 as soon as it blossomed, then, of course, there would be nothiiii; left for the 

 bees ; but if, on the other hand, as is generally the case, there are always 

 blossoms left standing in the pasture, some of them even till they wither 

 and shed their seeds, then it must often happen that after bees shall have 

 visited such blossoms ten or even twenty times, and thus collected one or 

 even t-wo grains of honey from one head, the grazing animal may, after all, 

 eat that particular plant and enjoy his oue-tenth of a grain of honey just 

 as well as if there had never been any bees in the field. If all these chances 

 be taken into account it will be evident that out of the 4 lb. or 5 lb. of honey 



