Sweet clover honey plant: description and types, when it blooms, and productivity, benefits

Clover is a medicinal plant that has long been known in folk medicine. Grass is also used in other areas: agriculture as green manure, for feeding pets, and for many other purposes. Sweet clover is also known as a honey plant, which gives pollen to bees, from which one of the most valuable types of honey is obtained. Therefore, many beekeepers deliberately grow crops on their plots.

Appearance and distribution

Clover belongs to the legume family, subfamily of moths. More often it is a biennial herbaceous plant, less often one-year specimens can be found. In folk culture, they call wild buckwheat, Italian or bottom grass, burkun or burkun.

The height of the sweet clover can reach 2 meters. The main stem is straight, strong, numerous leaflets depart from it, crowned with teeth along the edges. The flowers are bright yellow, small in size and attached to short stalks. Often they form long compact racemes, sometimes reaching 0.8 meters in length.

The melliferous area itself is located at the base of the corolla. The plant produces small fruits - less than 4 centimeters. Their ripening period falls on August.

Initially sweet clover grew only in the hinterlands of Asia and Europe. But then he expanded his habitat, he began to be found in the UK, America, New Zealand. Now the culture is found everywhere, it is not considered a scarce honey plant. Place of growth - meadows, fields, wastelands, quarry zones.

Types of sweet clover

The main varieties of culture are white and yellow sweet clover. Each of them has subspecies, which can also act as honey plants. Also known is the annual burkun, which is considered a rich source of nectar for bees.

White

White sweet clover is an annual or biennial plant, reaching a height of 30 to 150 centimeters. The stem is tall, the leaves are compound, trifoliate.

The flowers are small, painted white. They have a pleasant aroma, produce a lot of pollen and nectar. The flowering period of white sweet clover begins in the second half of June. The culture is widespread on the territory of the Ryazan region. The flowering period lasts 45-50 days.

Yellow

Yellow sweet clover is a biennial herbaceous plant, the height of which ranges from 1.5 to 2 meters. The stem is branched, dense. The flowers are yellow, collected in long, narrow racemes, each of which contains from 30 to 70 flowers.

As a honey plant yellow sweet clover is valued for the early start of the flowering period. It begins to secrete nectar 1-3 weeks earlier than the white burkun, but it all depends on the region of its growth.

Annual

In Russia, annual sweet clover is considered a relatively new honey plant. It was bred by American breeders and is characterized by:

• the beginning of flowering immediately after sowing (and not the next year, as the varieties described above);
• higher honey productivity compared to previously considered plant species;
• drought tolerant.

Culture grows up to 1.8-2.5 meters in height. The flowers are white, bisexual, drooping, have an irregular shape. They are placed on short peduncles, forming beautiful inflorescences. They form and bloom 2-2.5 months after sowing the crop.

Sowing and caring for the crop

Clover is undemanding to the soil, but it is not recommended to sow it in acidic or waterlogged soil. Before starting sowing work, you should carefully dig up the earth and loosen it. Fertilizers are applied for digging: it is enough to mix 50 grams of superphosphate and 20 grams of potassium s alt with the substrate.

Note! Burkun grains are hard stone, so they are difficult to germinate.

To speed up this process, experts recommend cutting each seed before placing it in the soil.

Sowing is best done in April. The grains are laid out in pre-made grooves with a distance of 50 centimeters from each other. Dig up the crops with a small layer of earth and water well.

The plant tolerates heat with firmness, it does not require special care. It is enough just to water it regularly, not allowing the top soil layer to dry out completely. The first shoots of culture with such simple care will appear in 3 weeks.

Donnikova honey

Sweet clover is a plant that is generously saturated with useful substances in the form of vitamins, minerals, amino acids, antioxidants. It also contains phytohormones, phytoncides and other important elements. Therefore, honey from the nectar of the burkunets is the most valuable product of beekeeping. And due to the action of bee enzymes, it receives additional beneficial properties.

Donnikova honey has an exquisite smell, reminiscent of the aroma of freshly cut hay. It is white with a greenish or amber tint. The taste is soft, sweet, pleasant, in the aftertaste there is a slight bitterness, vaguely reminiscent of vanilla.

The product is characterized by slow crystallization. During sugaring, it forms a solid mass of a coarse-grained structure.

Honey productivity

Burkun is sought after by beekeepers and is often intentionally grown by beekeepers because of its impressive honey production. It depends on the type of crop, but rarely falls below the mark of 200 kilograms of honey collected from 1 hectare throughout the entire period of time that the honey crop blooms.

A brief comparative table of honey productivity of the previously considered sweet clover varieties:

From 140 to 230 kilograms per hectare3Annual

	Sweet clover variety	Honey productivity
1	White	200 kilograms per hectare
2	Yellow
	From 300 to 800 kilograms per hectare

Annual sweet clover provides the largest amount of raw materials for further processing by bees. At the same time, it does not require the creation of any special conditions for its cultivation. Despite being an artificially bred honey plant, it is just as easy to grow as a white or yellow burkun.

Benefit

Donnikova honey gets all the beneficial properties that the honey plant itself is endowed with. The use of the product is carried out with the aim of:

• prevention or treatment of colds, SARS, influenza;
• eliminate sore throat;
• strengthening the immune system;
• combat pain;
• normalize sleep;
• eliminate nervous disorders;
• metabolism stabilization;

• increasing the body's energy reserve;
• increasing breast milk production in nursing mothers (it is recommended to consume 10 milliliters of honey daily after meals);
• liquefaction and removal of viscous sputum from the bronchi in diseases of the respiratory tract;
• stabilizing blood pressure: a bee product will be especially useful for attacks of arterial hypotension;
• acceleration of maturation and spontaneous opening of abscesses: panaritium, boil, carbuncle;
• stimulation of wound healing and regenerating processes in the dermal layers.

A huge plus of the product is the absence of contraindications to its use in overweight people. Also, sweetness is allowed to be taken during pregnancy, lactation and in children from 3 years old.

Clover honey is also added to all sorts of cosmetics made by women at home. The sweet substance is able to rejuvenate, tighten the skin, cleanse the pores, stimulate the processes of resorption of scars and scars.

Truly, sweet clover honey is a unique gift of nature. However, like a honey plant, which provides raw materials for obtaining such a valuable bee product.

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