364 
Beekeeping 
alfalfa and cotton may also be mentioned among the culti¬ 
vated plants of value to the beekeeper. In seeking to im¬ 
prove a range by changing the flora, it is often profitable to 
scatter seed of some plant which will occupy waste land. 
Although the appreciation of the value of sweet clover as a 
forage plant and soil renovator is increasing among farmers, 
it is still valuable to the beekeeper chiefly as occupying 
waste land, crowding out less valuable plants. The scatter¬ 
ing of sweet clover seed along embankments and over waste 
land has proved so profitable to beekeepers that the seed is 
now offered for sale annually in the bee journals. 
Value of the minor sources. 
Those plants which, because of scarcity or limited secre¬ 
tion of nectar, fail to give the beekeeper a surplus are, never¬ 
theless, of marked value and are worthy of more consider¬ 
ation than they usually receive. The amount of honey 
consumed by an average colony of bees in a year has been 
variously estimated as from 200 to 600 pounds. 1 This will, 
of course, vary according to the locality, strength of colony 
and other factors. Accepting even the lowest figure, it 
is evident that a moderate sized apiary obtains tons of sugar 
from the flowers in the surrounding territory. While nectar 
comes in abundantly enough at times to produce a surplus, 
the beekeeper does not leave in the hives at the close of a 
surplus honey-flow enough to feed the bees until another 
major honey-flow, except possibly at the close of the season. 
The bees are almost constantly gathering nectar from the 
minor sources during the summer and the aggregate gathered 
from these plants is enormous. If, for example, nectar were 
obtained in the North from white clover only, at the close 
of the flow the beekeeper would be compelled to leave about 
1 A recent estimate is one made by Hommell (1913, [Consumption of a 
hive of bees during the year] La Vie agrieole et rurale, II, No. 22, pp. 
653-655) in which it is concluded that an average of 480 pounds is needed, 
divided as follows: maintenance of bees, 400 lbs., feeding of brood, 70 
lbs., wax production, 10 lbs. 
