If Dutch clover (Trifolium repens) be neither grown abundantly by the neighbouring farmers, nor the spontaneous growth of the surrounding country, the apiarian should, if possible, crop some ground with it himself, as it is one of the grand sources from which bees collect their honey in the spring, and indeed during a considerable portion of the principal gathering season. From the value of clover in this respect, one species of it (Trifolium pratense) has acquired the name of Honey-suckle clover. Yellow trefoil also (Medicago lupulina), though not so great a favourite with the bees as Dutch clover, is nevertheless a valuable pasturage for them, in consequence of its blossoming earlier than the clover.
Though I have made Dutch clover take precedence of every other bee pasturage,—a precedence which in this country at least it is fairly entitled to,—yet it is by no means the first in the order of the seasons.
“First the gray willow’s glossy pearls they steal.
Or rob the hazel of its golden meal,
While the gay crocus and the violet blue
Yield to the flexile trunk ambrosial dew.”
Evans.
The earliest resources of the bee are the willow, the hazel, the osier, the poplar, the sycamore and the plane, all which are very important adjuncts to the neighbourhood of an apiary. The catkins of several of them afford an abundant supply of farina, and attract the bees very strongly in early spring when the weather is fine. Mr. Kirby, in his Monographia Apum Angliæ, considers the female catkins of the different species of Salix as affording honey, the male ones, pollen.
To these may be added the snowdrop, the crocus, white alyssum, laurustinus, &c.
Orange and lemon trees also, and other green-house plants, afford excellent honey, and might be advantageously presented to the bees at this season.
Gooseberry, currant and raspberry trees likewise, with sweet marjoram, winter savory and peppermint, should not be far off them. From the early blossoming of the two first, and from their yielding an extraordinary quantity of honey, they form some of the first sources of spring food for the bees, and in all probability furnish them with the pale green pellets, then seen upon their thighs.
The peach, nectarine, &c. are also valuable, on account of their blossoming very early.
Apple and pear trees, which in Worcestershire and Herefordshire, during several weeks of spring, seem to form