Almost a million people in the United States alone are engaged in keeping bees for the production of honey. Many thousands more carry on the sales and marketing of this increasingly important crop.

Honey bees were first imported into this country by early white settlers. The Indians called the honey bee "white man's fly. " At that time honey was the main sweetening agent used throughout the world. Today sugar has largely replaced it, but the honey bees form a magnificent army working for the good of mankind.

There are as many kinds of honey as there are flower blossoms, each with its individual flavor and color. Some of the finest honey, like the apple blossom honey, is made very early in the spring. At this time of the year bee food is scarce, so most of this delicious early honey is consumed by the bees.

Bee pastures from Maine to California consist mainly of trees, flowers, and weeds. Some of the better known trees adapted to honey production are the apple, peach, cherry, linden, poplar, willow, and orange. Among the important flowers yielding honey in a commercial quantity are the white clover, red clover, buckwheat, and alfalfa. These plants have a double value. Not only are they good bee pasturage but they are commercial crops also.

Honey is gathered from the many other flowering weeds such as goldenrod in the East and sage in the West. Practically every blossoming tree, flower, and weed may be classed as a possible source of honey supply.

In many places where the flowering bee pastures are scattered, it is necessary for beekeepers to move their hives from one desirable location to another during the honey season. This is usually accomplished by the use of motor trucks.

Probably flower pollinization is a more valuable work of the bees than honey making. Many plants, including clover, depend upon the bees to carry the pollen from one flower to another. Unless the flowers of these plants are properly pollinized, no seeds will mature; and, without seeds, the plants cannot he grown. They will cease to he. Bees are so necessary to carry pollen that, in many places, flower growers and fruit growers hire bee growers to haul the bees to the farms where the flowers and the fruits are grown.

Honey is a healthful food. It may he used wherever sweet is desired, especially in cooking. Honey is more desirable than sugar. Children have a natural desire for sweets and honey is a natural answer to this craving. Honey will kill many disease germs in about seventy hours.

Mr. C. P. Dadant, in his book entitled, First Lessons in Beekeeping, tells of a drink called "Honey Tea, " which consists of a cup of hot water in which a teaspoonful of honey is dissolved. Mr. Dadant states, "The attainment of great age in some cases has been attributed to the lifelong use of honey tea. "

The Bee Man

The bee man comes for honey And carries it away,

So out I hum to gather more To lose some other day.