360 
BEES AND BEE-KEEPING. 
My readers will not need to be warned against a 
common mistake — that the flower garden is the bees^ 
cornucopia. As an American humourist says, “ the 
bee can get over a very high fence,” and the plants 
which grow close to its hive door are not much visited^ 
its instinct rightly leading it further afield. If each 
forager applied to the blossoms nearest home, how 
much time would be lost in dipping into nectaries 
already rifled of their sweets ! Cultivating a few 
melliferous flowers near the hives, after the manner 
of some amateurs, is scarcely more likely to increase 
the weight of the supers than growing wheat in a 
flower-pot is likely to cheapen bread. True, the 
nearer to our stocks rich forage lies, the greater will 
be our results ; but all included within a circle two 
miles in diameter, having the apiary for its centre, 
may be regarded by the bee-keeper as his -forage 
ground. Certainly, his bees will travel to a much 
greater distance, but the wear and tear and the time 
occupied in the longer journeys detract considerably 
from the net result. 
A district may undoubtedly be considerably improved 
by carefully sowing in waste places honey plants, 
which will, when established, scatter their own seeds — 
borage, melilot, and white clover, e.g . — but devoting 
land to a honey crop is generally a doubtful invest- 
ment ; for, even in America, where land is cheap, or 
only half-occupied, and the population sparse, it is 
a debatable point whether planting for honey actually 
pays. 
A gentle slope has advantages over a dead level, 
and, if this runs to the south, so much the better. 
