_Rochelle, Ill._
👉 Some of the plants named as of no value for bees, are highly praised,
in other localities.--ED.
* * * * *
I once met with an individual whose breath, shortly after he was stung,
had the same odor with the venom of the enraged insect.--_L. L.
Langstroth._
[For the American Bee Journal.]
The Rocky Mountain Bee Plant.
(POLANISIA PURPUREA.)
MR. EDITOR:--About the middle of August, by invitation of Mr. Alfred
Green, of Amesbury, a friend and myself visited his place to see the
bees work on the Rocky Mountain bee plant. We arrived there about eight
o’clock in the morning, and found the plants swarming with bees; one,
two, and in some cases three bees upon the same flower.
Mr. Green informed us that they were still at work on it, the day
before, at seven o’clock in the evening. It was amusing to see them
gather pollen from it while on the wing, the stamens extending so far
out that they could not reach them after alighting on the flower.
The plant was growing on a rather light soil, not highly manured, and
stood from two to three feet high, branching out in all directions.
Planted in the spring, it comes into blossom soon after the white clover
disappears and continues until killed by the frost. If planted in the
fall, as Mr. G. says it can be, it would blossom much earlier. I think
this is the best plant to cultivate for bees, as it fills a vacancy, (in
this locality) between the white clover and the fall flower.
Alsike clover I have raised, commencing in 1860; and find that, on my
soil, bees prefer it to white clover. But as it begins and ends
blossoming at the same time with white clover, it is not of so much
value for bees, as it would be if it came a month or so later.
As the seed of the Rocky Mountain bee plant is valuable for poultry, and
probably for swine and other farm stock, when made into meal, it would
perhaps pay to raise it for the seed alone.