BEE PASTURAGE. 139 



yielding both pollen and honey in great abundance ; 

 it begins to open its flowers when quite young and 

 continues as the bush expands, until it becomes very 

 large ; each day brings forth new blossoms. A field 

 of mustard in full bloom is a most magnificent sight ; 

 it is like a vast pile of golden flowers ; the plants are 

 completely enveloped with flowers, from the ground 

 up as high as a man's head. There is no other plant 

 that I ever noticed that produces so many flowers to 

 any given quantity of ground, nor yields so much 

 honey. Last summer we raised a field of it in Cali- 

 fornia, expressly for our bees, and found it to pay 

 largely, as it filled a recess that occurred between 

 other flowers. In almost any of the Atlantic States it 

 serves to fill the recess that occurs between the closing 

 of the white clover and the opening of the buck- 

 wheat flowers, a period of about four weeks, which 

 is the very best part of the year for gathering honey, 

 as the weather is generally warm and calm ; hence 

 the propriety of raising this crop to employ the bees 

 profitably. 



In the San Jose valley, California, mustard is 

 almost the entire dependence of the bee-keepers for 

 their surplus honey; it grows spontaneously there, 

 and can be seen in its purity. The honey produced 

 from it resembles that yielded from the linden, both in 

 color and taste. 



Mignonette, a modest, unpresuming little flower, 

 found in all well assorted collections, is one of the 

 greatest value as a bee pasture, if grown in sufli- 

 cient quantities to be an object, It is low growing 



