}s ANNUAL REPORTS 01 DEPABTMENTOF AGRICULTURE, 1 ■ 
Honey Beet Prodigious!} \< stive at Clover Pollinators 
The value of honey beea in the pollination of clovers was demon- 
strated in Ohio by counts of their visits to the flowers. On alsike 
clover there were 380,000,000 bee visits on a normal stand of K» '. ,000 
florets per acre, ooammol h red clover had 152,000,000 visits on a stand 
of 300,000,000 florets, and red clover 312,000,000 risits on 216,0* . 
florets per acre. Honey bees on alsike clover visited 27 floret-, on 
mammoth red clover s florets, and on red clover 10.5 florets per minute. 
On l plots of red clover that were caged to exclude pollinating 
insects the average number of seeds per head ranged from 0.02 to 0.19, 
whereas on 15 plots on which honey bees were caged for pollinating 
purposes the range was 45.4 to 70.3 seeds per head. 
Oops Compete for Bees 
The pollination problem is complicated by a severe competition 
between various crops for the visits of bees. The compel it ion he! ween 
fields of alsike and white clover close to each other and between fields 
of the same clover is illustrated by the following numbers of 
acre estimated from any one count : 
Location: Alrtke olc White d 
l _- 1,946 2,420 and 968 _: 
2 3,194 and 1,936 (2 fields) 3,582 
:; 1.774 2,742 
A field of red clover had hut 1,210 bees per acre when compel 
against Hnbam sweetclover, which had 21,780 bees, while hearts 
nearby had 13,068 bee- per acre. 
The importance of plant competition in determining whether or not 
colonic.- of bees brought into a field will gather pollen from a given 
plant was indicated in an experiment in which all plant competitors 
of alfalfa were removed. Roadside weeds within a mile of five colonies 
were sprayed with 2,4-D. Although alfalfa was abundant, lmhhv 
Was the principal pollen collected by the bees before the Bpraying and 
continued to be even though the gumweed plant- nearby had been 
killed. After the spraying the bees evidently extended their Sight 
range to find new sources of gumweed rather than collect pollen 6 
t he a I fa 1 fa that w a- closer t o t he h i \ BS. 
Bees may gather pollen readily from a kind of plant grown in 
lucidity but not when it i< grown in another locality. In Utah, for 
example, honey bee- gathered little pollen from alfalfa grown in 
Cache Valley but collected it readily from alfalfa at Delta. Partial 
chemical analyses showed the ash content of pollen from Delta to he 
more than twice that of pollen from Cache Valley (2.50 versus L.16 
p. i cent ). 
Of 65 species of wild lice- that have been taken on alfalfa in other 
part- of the country, only 27 appeal' to Contribute in an important 
degree to the pollination of alfalfa in Utah, although all 65 sp 
have been collected m this State of in -oilllu'l'll Idaho. //</' 
ligatus Sav was found on alfalfa mi (Jtah (<>v the first time in 1948. 
