MillerThousand AnswersBeekeepingQuestions.pdf - BioBees

THOUSAND ANSWERS 47mon growth. The most common sweet clover is melilotus alba.It is a biennial, coming from the seed one year, blossoming thenext, and then dying, root and branch. Even if bees have all theycan do on white clover, sweet clover isvaluable, because while itbegins to bloom later than white clover, it continues much later,even till frost.There is a yellow sweet clover (melilotus officinalis) whichblooms two weeks earlier than the white. Sweet clover willgrow where scarcely anything else will, as in a clay bank. Itseems to flourish best, or at least to start from the seed best, onhard ground trodden by farm stock.Q. Last year white sweet clover was everywhere; this yearthere is scarcely any. Why did it not grow again this year, insteadof the yellow? The bees worked on the white all the time,and seemed to be crazy over it, but they paid no attention tothe yellow.A. Sweet clover is a biennial, growing the first year withoutblooming. Then after blooming and producing seed the secondyear it dies root and branch. So, if you sow seed one year andleave it to itself thereafter, the tendency would be to have bloomevery other year. One yellow sweet clover (melilotus indica)blooms the first year. It is an annual.Q. How far north and south will sweet clover thrive and dowell?A. I suppose if sweet clover may be considered as having anynative place it is Bokhara, in Asia, about 40 degrees north of theequator. At any rate, it is called "Bokhara clover," and years agothat was the chief name for it. According to that, one wouldsuppose that it would be at its best on the parallel of 40, whichruns centrally through Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Utah and Nevada.But it does not seem to be very limited as to its habitat. I thinkit succeeds about as far north as bees are generally kept.Q. Is sweet clover tender, or hardy? Will it freeze as easilyas does corn ?A. Hardy—very hardy. Sweet clover would only laugh at afreeze that would kill corn. I think I've known it to be killedonly in two vvays. One year I prepared a piece of ground in fineshape, sowed sweet clover with oats, and it made a fine stand.Next spring there wasn't a spear left. The ground was so niceand soft that it heaved and pulled up all the sweet clover by theroots. In the solid ground of the road-side I never knew it towinter-kill. Another year I had a piece mowed close to the