BEE PASTURAGE. 



59 



CULTIVATION OF HONEY PLANTS. 



In all localities there will probably be found intervals during tlie 

 working season when bees will find very little or even nothing to 

 gather, unless supplied by cultivation. When possible it is always 

 best to fill in such intervals with some honey-producing plant which at 

 tlie same time furnishes some other product — fruit, grain, forage, green 

 manure, or timber. The attempt to cultivate any plant for its honey 

 alone has not thus far been found profitable, in x>ractice, however 

 promising it may seem theoreticalh'. Catnip [yepeta cataria), mother- 

 wort {Leonurus cardiaca), globe thistle {Echinops sphccroccphalus), 

 figwort {Scrophiclaria nodosa), bee balm {Melissa officinalis), borage 

 (Borago officinalis), Rocky Mountain cleome [Cleome serrulata), meli- 

 lot or sweet clover (Melilotus alba), and linden [Tilia americana) have 

 all been recommended repeatedly and tried here and there somewhat 



Fig. 45. — Wagner s flat pea (Lathyrus sylvestrii vagneri). 



extensively. But thus far the hope of securing a sutficient increase in 

 the crop of honey to pay for the cultivation of these plants has in all 

 cases had to be abandoned. With the ap])re('iation in value of agri- 

 cultural lands the prospects for the profitable cultivation of any crop 

 for honey alone are still further removed. Yet the writer is fully con- 

 vinced that in thefuture, es])ecially in the older ])ortionsof our country, 

 eminent success in bee raising will require much more attention to the 

 furnishing of artificial pasturage for the bees, a close study, in fact, of 

 the bee flora of one's localitv, and a systematic efibrt to supi)ly the 

 deficiencies by sowing self propagating honey i)lants, and such as may 

 be cultivated witli i)rorit fi)r other reasons besides their honey yield. 



Among those plants which have just been menti»)ned as having been 

 cultivated at various times for their honev alone, the linden for shade 



