Page:How to Keep Bees.djvu/253

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BEES AND PLANTS
205

overdoes the matter by loading the feet of the bee with its pollen sacs, until the poor messenger dies of exhaustion under the burden of its message, or dies a prisoner in the blossom.

The cheerful and ubiquitous dandelion has this much in its favour, that it is beloved by the bees and often gives them honey and pollen at a time in the spring when they need it for brood-rearing.

Of all the weeds which will pay the apiarist to establish in waste places, the most profitable are the mellilots, or sweet clovers, of which there are two species, the white and the yellow. These are most beneficent weeds, for they carry nitrogen to the soil like other clovers, and they are easily exterminated by cultivation, so they are not to be feared.

Sweet clover in blossom fills the atmosphere of the country road with perfume, for it is almost everywhere a roadside weed; and, as might be expected, it is most attractive to the bees. While the honey made from it is rather strong in flavour, yet it is of good colour, and sells well. When it is mixed with the honey from other flowers, it adds much to the excellence of the flavour.