Mignonnette is excellent for bees, but of all flowers, none seems to
equal the Borage. It blossoms in June, and continues in bloom until
severe frost, and is always covered with bees, even in dull weather, as
its pendant blossoms keep the honey from the moisture; the honey yielded
by it, is of a very superior quality. If any plant which does not in
itself make a valuable crop, would justify cultivation, there is no
doubt that borage would. An acre of it would support a large number of
stocks. If in a village those who keep bees would unite together and
secure the sowing of an acre, in their immediate vicinity, each person
paying in proportion to the number of stocks kept, it might be found
profitable. The plants should have about two feet of space every way,
and after they covered the ground, would need no further attention. They
would come into full blossom, cultivated in this manner, about the time
that the white clover begins to fail, and would not only furnish rich
pasture for the bees, but would keep them from the groceries and shops
in which so many perish.
If those who are engaged in adorning our villages and country residences
with shade trees, would be careful to set out a liberal allowance of
such kinds as are not only beautiful to us, but attractive to the bees,
in process of time the honey resources of the country might be very
greatly increased.
OVERSTOCKING A DISTRICT WITH BEES.
I come now to a point of the very first importance to all interested in
the cultivation of bees. If the opinions which the great majority of
American bee-keepers entertain, are correct, then the keeping of bees
must, in our country, be always an insignificant pursuit. I confess that
I find it difficult to repress a smile, when the owner of a few hives,
in a district where as many hundreds might be made to prosper, gravely
imputes his ill success, to the fact that too many bees are kept in his
vicinity! The truth is, that as bees are frequently managed, they are of
but little value, even though in "a land flowing with milk and honey."
If in the Spring, a colony of bees is prosperous and healthy, (see p.
207) it will gather abundant stores, even if hundreds equally strong,
are in its immediate vicinity, while if it is feeble, it will be of
little or no value, even if there is not another swarm within a dozen
miles of it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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