ROCKY MOUNTAIN BEE PLANT 
733 
seen passing rapidly out and in a particular 
hive, and the more they were examined, the 
more it appeared they were being robbed. 
The entrance was contracted, but it seem¬ 
ed to make little difference. It was finally 
closed almost entirely, compelling the 
bees to squeeze out and in, in a way 
that must have been quite uncomfort¬ 
able, at least. After awhile they calmed 
down, when there was only the ordinary 
number of bees going out and in. Behold, 
the robbers were at another colony, and 
they had to be put thru the same program; 
then another and another; until it ap¬ 
peared a host of robbers had come from 
somewhere, and made a raid on the apiary, 
and that, had some one not been on hand, 
the whole of them would have been ruined. 
When the whole performance was repeated 
the next day, it began to appear that 
bee culture was a very trying pursuit. 
In due course of time it developed that 
there was no robbing at all, but that it 
was just the young bees taking their after¬ 
noon playflights, for as already stated, a 
playflight of young bees often looks like 
a case of robbing. See Playflights of 
Young Bees. 
ROCKY MOUNTAIN BEE PLANT 
(Cleome serrulata ).—A smooth annual, 2 to 
3 feet tall, with 3-foliolate leaves, and 
showy rose-colored flowers in racemes. It 
extends from Minnesota southwest to New 
Mexico and Arizona. The value of the 
Rocky Mountain bee plant in Colorado has 
been greatly overestimated, altho it former¬ 
ly yielded a much larger amount of honey 
than today. In exceptionally favorable 
seasons it is still the source of considerable 
surplus on the plains east of the moun¬ 
tains. The honey is reported to be light 
colored and to have a fair flavor. The 
flowers appear in July. About 1890 the 
Michigan Agricultural College experiment¬ 
ed with several acres of this plant for the 
purpose of testing its value. A good stand 
of plants was not secured, and the honey 
obtained was far from paying expenses. 
Two other species of this genus also de¬ 
serve description. Spider-flower ( C. spin- 
osa) is cultivated for its handsome white 
or rose-colored flowers. It grows in waste 
places from Illinois southward to Florida 
and Louisiana, and often yields nectar very 
copiously. With a medicine dropper a tea¬ 
spoonful of nectar has been drawn from 
13 flowers. It has, indeed, been gathered 
with a spoon in sufficient quantities to taste 
its flavor, and often a single bee cannot 
gafrier all there is in one blossom. A sin¬ 
gle plant may produce several hundred 
blossoms, and the flow of nectar may con¬ 
tinue until late in the fall. 
Yellow Cleome ( C . lutea). The yellow 
Cleome has yellow flowers and blooms in 
June. It is found in the western highlands 
from Nebraska to Washington and Ari¬ 
zona. Unlike the purple Cleome, which 
Rocky Mountain bee plant. 
seems to prefer cool well-watered locations 
in the creek bottoms and upper mountain 
valleys, the yellow species is seldom found 
anywhere except in the desert and in the 
cultivated land of the warmer valleys. If 
the winters are dry the seed does not ger- 
jninate, but lies dormant in the soil until 
there is sufficient moisture, so that there 
may be few or no plants for several years. 
But, after a winter with a sufficient precipi¬ 
tation of rain or snow, it springs up so 
thickly that the desert for miles looks as 
tho it were covered with a carpet of - gold. 
In moist or irrigated land it grows to the 
height of two feet or more, and blooms 
nearly all summer. Usually it grows only 
