CHAPTER III. 
BEE PASTURAGE AND PRODUCTS. 
“ Honey is not made by the bees, but is simply gathered by them 
from the nectaries of flowers, and from that peculiar deposit on 
vegetation during summer, called ‘ honey dew.' ” — Dr. Kirtland. 
Honey is a liquid sweet secreted by flowers, and is gathered 
and stored in the combs unchanged by the bees. If a stock of 
bees be fed on inferior quality of syrup, and the combs examined, 
it will be found in the cells unchanged. Hence the quality of 
honey depends upon the flowers from which it is gathered. 
White clover, linden, raspberries, &c., affording light-colored 
honey, while buckwheat, poplar, and dandelion, yield that which 
is darker. 
Honey and pollen are supplied by nearly all the flowering trees 
aud plants of the vegetable, kingdom. The varieties, in the 
northern States, which furnish the largest proportion are, firet in 
the spring, the alders, soft maple and willows. These come very 
early, and, if not cut short by frost, stimulate breeding, and form 
for the bees an acceptable change from a spare winter' diet. 
There is then, in most places, a scarcity of flowers for about three 
weeks, when the hard or sugar maple throws out its golden tas- 
sels, and the peach, pear, cherry and smaller fruits, rich in honey 
and bee-bread, extend an invitation which is never slighted by 
the provident bees. The apple-tree blossoms now afford a real 
