CHAPTER XVI.HONEY PLANTS.

As bees do not make honey, but only gather it, and as honey is mainly derived from certain flowers, it of course follows that the apiarist's success will depend largely upon the abundance of honey-secreting plants in the vicinity of his apiary. True it is that certain bark and plant lice secrete a kind of liquid sweet—honey of doubtful reputation—which, in the dearth of anything better, the bees seem glad to appropriate. I have thus seen the bees thick about a large bark-louse which attacks the tulip tree, and thus often destroys one of our best honey trees. This is an undescribed species of the genusLecanium. I have also seen them thick about three species of plant lice. One, thePemphigus imbricator, Fitch, works on the beech tree. Its abdomen is thickly covered with long wool, and it makes a comical show as it wags this up and down upon the least disturbance. The leaves of trees attacked by this louse, as also those beneath the trees, are fairly gummed with a sweetish substance. I have found that the bees avoid this substance, except at times of extreme drouth and long protracted absence of honeyed bloom. It was the source of no inconsiderable stores during the terribly parched autumn of Chicago's great disaster. (SeeAppendix, page 286).

Another species ofPemphigusgives rise to certain solitary plum-like galls, which appear on the upper surface of the red elm. These galls are hollow, with a thin skin, and within the hollows are the lice, which secrete an abundant sweet that often attracts the bees to a feast of fat things, as the gall is torn apart, or cracks open, so that the sweet exudes. This sweet is anything but disagreeable, and may not be unwholesome to the bees.

Another aphis, of a black hue, works on the branches of ourwillows, which they often entirely cover, and thus greatly damage another tree valuable for both honey and pollen. Were it not that they seldom are so numerous two years in succession, they would certainly banish from among us one of our most ornamental and valuable honey-producing trees. These are fairly thronged in September and October, and not unfrequently in spring and summer if the lice are abundant, by bees, wasps, ants, and various two-winged flies, all eager to lap, up the oozing sweets. This louse is doubtless theLachnus dentatus, of Le Baron, and theAphis salicti, of Harris.

Bees also get, in some regions, a sort of honey-dew, which enables them to add to their stores with surprising rapidity. I remember one morning while riding on horse-back along the Sacramento river, in California, I broke off a willow twig beside the road when, to my surprise, I found it was fairly decked with drops of honey. Upon further examination I found the willow foliage was abundantly sprinkled by these delicious drops. These shrubs were undisturbed by insects, nor were they under trees. Here then was a real case of honey-dew, which must have been distilled through the night by the leaves. I never saw any such phenomenon in Michigan, yet others have. Dr. A. H. Atkins, an accurate and conscientious observer, has noted this honey-dew more than once here in Central Michigan.

Bees also get some honey from oozing sap, some of questionable repute from about cider mills, some from grapes and other fruit which have been crushed, or eaten and torn by wasps and other insects. That bees ever tear the grapes is a question of which I have failed to receive any personal proof, though for years I have been carefully seeking it. I have lived among the vineyards of California, and have often watched bees about vines in Michigan, but never saw bees tear open the grapes. I have laid crushed grapes in the apiary, when the bees were not gathering, and were ravenous for stores, which, when covered with sipping bees, were replaced with sound grape-clusters, which in no instance were mutilated. I have thus been led to doubt if bees ever attack sound grapes, though quick to improve the opportunities which the oriole's beak and the stronger jaws of wasps offer them. Still, Prof. Riley feels sure that bees are sometimesthus guilty, and Mr. Bidwell tells me he has frequently seen bees rend sound grapes, which they did with their feet. Yet, if this is the case, it is certainly of rare occurrence, and is more than compensated by the great aid which the bees afford the fruit-grower in the great work of cross-fertilization, which is imperatively necessary to his success, as has been so well shown by Dr. Asa Gray and Mr. Chas. Darwin. It is true that cross-fertilization of the flowers, which can only be accomplished by insects, and early in the season by the honey-bee, is often, if not always, necessary to a full yield of fruit and vegetables. I am informed by Prof W. W. Tracy, that the gardeners in the vicinity of Boston keep bees that they may perform this duty. Even then, if Mr. Bidwell and Prof. Riley are right, and the bee does, rarely—for surely this is very rare, if ever—destroy grapes, still they are, beyond any possible question, invaluable aids to the pomologist.

But the principal source of honey is still from the flowers.

In the northeastern part of our country the chief reliance for May is the fruit-blossoms, willows, and sugar maples. In June white clover yields largely of the most attractive honey, both as to appearance and flavor. In July the incomparable basswood makes both bees and apiarist jubilant. In August buckwheat offers a tribute, which we welcome, though it be dark and pungent in flavor, while with us in Michigan, August and September give us a profusion of bloom which yields to no other in the richness of its capacity to secrete honey, and is not cut-off till the autumn frosts—usually about September 15.

Thousands of acres of golden rod, boneset, asters, and other autumn flowers of our new northern counties, as yet have blushed unseen, with fragrance wasted. This unoccupied territory, unsurpassed in its capability for fruit production, covered with grand forests of maple and basswood, and spread with the richest of autumn bloom, offers opportunities to the practical apiarist rarely equaled except in the Pacific States, and not even there, when other privileges are considered. In these localities, two or three hundred pounds to the colony is no surprise to the apiarist, while even four or five hundred are not isolated cases.

In the following table will be found a list of valuable honey-plants. Those in the first column are annual, biennial or perennial; the annual being enclosed in a parenthesis thus: (); the biennial enclosed in brackets thus: []; while those in the second column are shrubs or trees; the names of shrubs being enclosed in a parenthesis. The date of commencement of bloom is, of course, not invariable. The one appended, in case of plants which grow in our State, is about average for Central Michigan. Those plants whose names appear in small capitals yield very superior honey. Those with (a) are useful for other purposes than honey secretion. All but those with a * are native or very common in Michigan. Those written in the plural refer to more than one species. Those followed by a † are very numerous in species. Of course I have not named all, as that would include some hundreds which have been observed at the college, taking nearly all of the two great orders Compositæ and Rosaceæ. I have only aimed to give the most important, omitting many foreign plants of notoriety, as I have had no personal knowledge of them:

As this subject of bee pasturage is of such prime importance, and as the interest in the subject is so great and wide-spread, I feel that details with illustrations will be more than warranted.

Fig. 75.—Maple.

We have abundant experience to show that forty or fifty colonies of bees, take the seasons as they average, are all that a single place will sustain to the greatest advantage. Then, how significant the fact, that when the season is the best, fullthree times that number of colonies will find ample resources to keep all employed. So this subject of artificial pasturage becomes one well worthy close study and observation. The subject, too, is a very important one in reference to the location of the apiary.

It is well to remember in this connection, that two or three miles should be regarded as the limit of profitable gathering. That is, apiaries of from fifty to one hundred or more colonies, should not be nearer than four or five miles of each other.

Fig. 74.-Willow.

As we have already seen, the apiarist does not secure the best results, even in the early spring, except the bees are encouraged by the increase of their stores of pollen and honey; hence, in case we do not practice stimulative feeding—and many will not—it becomes very desirable to have some early bloom. Happily, in all sections of the United States our desires are not in vain.

Early in spring there are many scattering wild flowers, as the blood-root (Sanguinaria canadensis), liver-leaf (Hepatica acutiloba),and various others of the crowfoot family, as also many species of cress, which belong to the mustard family, etc., all of which are valuable and important.

The maples (Fig, 73), which are all valuable honey plants, also contribute to the early stores. Especially valuable are the silver maples (Acer dasycarpum), and the red or soft maples (Acer rubrum), as they bloom so very early, long before the leaves appear. The bees work on these, here in Michigan, the first week of April, and often in March. They are also magnificent shade trees, especially those that have the weeping habit. Their early bloom is very pleasing, their summer form and foliage beautiful, while their flaming tints in autumn are indescribable. The foreign maples, sycamore,Acer pseudo-platanus, and Norway,Acer platanoides, are also very beautiful. Whether superior to ours as honey plants, I am unable to say.

The willows, too (Fig, 74), rival the maples in the early period of bloom. Some are very early, blossoming in March, while others, like the white willow (Salix alba) (Fig, 74), bloom in May. The flowers on one tree or bush of the willow are all pistillate, that is, have pistils, but no stamens, while on others they are all staminate, having no pistils. On the former, they can gather only honey, on the latter only pollen. That the willow furnishes both honey and pollen is attested by the fact that I saw both kinds of trees, the pistillate and the staminate, thronged with bees the past season. The willow, too, from its elegant form and silvery foliage, is one of our finest shade trees.

Fig. 15.—Judas Tree

In the south of Michigan, and thence southward to Kentucky, and even beyond, the Judas tree, or red-bud,Cercis canadensis(Fig, 75), is not only worthy of cultivation as a honey plant, but is also very attractive, and well deserving of attention for its ornamental qualities alone. This blooms from March to May, according to the latitude.

The poplars—not the tulip—also bloom in April, and are freely visited by the bees. The wood is immaculate, and i& used for toothpicks. Why not use it for honey-boxes?

Fig. 76.—American Wistaria.

In May we have the grand sugar maple,Acer saccharinum(Fig, 73), incomparable for beauty, also all our various fruit trees, peach, cherry, plum, apple, etc., in fact all the Rosaceæ family. Our beautiful American Wistaria,Wistaria frutescens(Fig, 76), the very ornamental climber, or the still more lovely Chinese Wistaria,Wistaria sinensis(Fig, 77), which has longer racemes than the native, and often blossoms twice in the season. These are the woody twiners for the apiarist. The barberry, too,Berberis vulgaris(Fig, 78), comes after fruit blossoms, and is thronged with bees in search of nectarin spring, as with children in winter, in quest of the beautiful scarlet berries, so pleasingly tart.

Fig. 77.—Chinese Wistaria.

Fig. 78.—Barberry.

In California, the sumac, the coffee berry, and the famous white sage (Fig, 79), keep the bees full of activity.

Fig. 79.—White Sage.

Fig. 80.—White or Dutch Clover.

With June comes the incomparable white or Dutch clover,Trifolium repens(Fig, 80), whose chaste and modest bloom betokens the beautiful, luscious, and unrivalled sweets which are hidden in its corolla tube. Also its sister, Alsike or Swedish,Trifolium hybrida(Fig, 81), which seems to resemble both the white and red clover. It is a stronger grower than the white, and has a whitish blossom tinged with pink. This forms excellent pasture and hay for cattle, sheep, etc., and may well be sown by the apiarist. It will often pay apiarists to furnish neighbor farmers with seed as an inducement to grow this par excellent honey plant. Like white clover, it blooms all through June into July. Both of these should be sown early in spring with timothy, five or six pounds of seed to the acre, in the same manner that red clover seed is sown.

Fig. 81.—Alsike Clover.

Fig. 82.—Melilot Clover.

Fig. 83.—Borage.

Sweet clover, yellow and white,Melilotus officinalis(Fig, 82), andMelilotus alba, are well named. They bloom from the middle of June to the middle of July. Their perfume scents the air for long distances, and the hum of bees that throng their flowers is like music to the apiarist's ear. The honey, too, is just exquisite. These clovers are biennial, not blooming the first season, and dying after they bloom the second season. Another disagreeable fact, they have no value except for honey. They are said to become pernicious weeds if allowed to spread.

The other clovers—lucerne, yellow trefoil, scarlet trefoil, and alfalfa—have not proved of any value with us, perhaps owing to locality.

Borage,Borago officinalis(Fig, 83), an excellent bee plant, blooms from June till frost, and is visited by bees even in very rainy weather. It seems not to be a favorite, but is eagerly visited when all others fail to yield nectar.

Fig. 84.—Mignonette.

Fig. 85.—Okra.

Mignonette,Reseda odorata(Fig, 84), blooms from the middle of June till frost, is unparalleled for its sweet odor, furnishes nectar in profusion, and is well worthy cultivation.It does not secrete well in wet weather, but in favorable weather it is hardly equalled.

Okra or gumbo,Hibiscus esculentus, (Fig, 85), also blooms in June. It is as much sought after by the bees in quest of honey, as by the cook in search of a savory vegetable, or one to give tone to soup.

Sage,Salvia officinalis, horehound,Marrubium vulgare, motherwort,Leonurus cardiaca, and catnip,Nepeta cataria, which latter does not commence to bloom till July, all furnish nice white honey, remain in bloom a long time, and are very desirable, as they are in bloom in the honey dearth of July and August. They, like many others of the mint family (Fig, 86), are thronged with bees during the season of bloom.

Fig. 86.—Mint.

The first and last are of commercial importance, and all may well be introduced by apiarists, wherever there is any space or waste ground.

The silk or milk-weed furnishes abundant nectar from June to frost, as there are several species of the genus Asclepias, which is wide-spread in our country. This is the plant which has large pollen masses which often adhere to the legs of bees (Fig, 87), and sometimes so entrap them as to cause their death. Prof. Riley once very graciously advisedplanting them to kill bees. I say graciously, as I have watched these very closely, and am sure they do little harm, and are rich in nectar. Seldom a bee gets caught so as to hold it long, and when these awkward masses are carried away with the bee, they are usually left at the door of the hive, where I have often seen them in considerable numbers. The river bank hard by our apiary is lined with these sweet-smelling herbs, and we would like even more.

Fig. 87.—Pollen of Milk-weed.

Fig. 88.—Black Mustard.

Black mustard,Sinapis nigra(Fig, 88) white mustard,Sinapis alba, and rape,Brassica campestris(Fig, 89), all look much alike, and are all admirable bee plants, as they furnish much and beautiful honey. The first, if self-sown,blooms July 1st, the others June 1st; the first about eight weeks after sowing, the others about four. The mustards bloom for four weeks, rape for three. These are all specially commendable, as they may be made to bloom during the honey dearth of July and August, and are valuable plants to raise for the seed. Rape seems to be very attractive to insects, as the flea beetles and the blister beetles are often quite too much for it, though they do not usually destroy the plants till after they have blossomed. I have several times purchased what purported to be Chinese mustard, dwarf and tall, but Prof. Beal, than whom there is no better authority, tells me they are only the white and black, and certainly, they are no whit better as bee plants. These plants, with buckwheat, the mints, borage and mignonette, are specially interesting, as they cover, or may be made to cover, the honey dearth from about July 20th to August 20th.

Fig. 89.—Rape.

The mustards and rape may be planted in drills about eight inches apart, any time from May 1st to July 15th. Four quarts will sow an acre.

Fig. 90.—Tulip

In this month blooms the tulip tree,Liriodendron tulipifera(Fig, 90)—often called poplar in the South—which is not only an excellent honey producer, but is one of our most stately and admirable shade-trees. Now, too, bloom the sumacs, though one species blooms in May, the wild plum, the raspberries, whose nectar is unsurpassed in color and flavor, and the blackberry. Corn, too, is said by many to yield largely of honey as well as pollen, and the teasel,Dipsacus fullonum(Fig, 91), is said, not only by Mr. Doolittle, but by English and German apiarists, to yield richly of beautiful honey. This last, too, has commercial importance. Theblackberry opens its petals in June, and also the fragrant locust, which, from its rapid growth, beautiful form and handsome foliage, would rank among our first shade trees, except that it is so tardy in spreading its canopy of green, and so liable to ruinous attack by the borers, which last peculiarity it shares with the incomparable maples. Washing the trunks of the trees in June and July with soft soap, will in great part remove this trouble.

Fig. 91.—Teasel.

Fig. 92.—Cotton.

Now, too, our brothers of the South reap a rich harvest from the great staple, cotton (Fig, 92), which commences tobloom early in June, and remains in blossom even to October. This belongs to the same family—Mallow—as the hollyhock, and like it, blooms and fruits through the season.

Early in this month opens the far-famed basswood or linden,Tilia Americana(Fig, 93), which, for the profusion and quality of its honey has no superior. The tree, too, from its great spreading top and fine foliage, is magnificent for shade. Five of these trees are within two rods of my study window, and their grateful fragrance, and beautiful form and shade, have often been the subject of remark by visitors.

Fig. 93.—Basswood.

Figwort,Scrophularia nodosa(Fig, 94), often called rattle-weed, as the seeds will rattle in the pod, and carpenter's square, as it has a square stalk, is an insignificant looking weed, with inconspicuous flowers, that afford abundant nectar from the middle of July till frost. I have received almost as many for identification as I have of the asters and golden-rods. Prof. Beal remarked to me a year or two since, that it hardly seemed possible that it could be so valuable. Wecannot always rightly estimate by appearances alone. It is a very valuable plant to be scattered in waste places.

Fig. 94.—Figwort.

That beautiful and valuable honey plant, from Minnesota, Colorado, and the Rocky Mountains, cleome, or the Rocky Mountain bee-plant,Cleome integrifolia(Fig, 96), if self-sown, or sown early in spring, blooms by the middle of July, and lasts for long weeks. Nor can anything be more gay than these brilliant flowers, alive with bees all through the long fall. This should be planted in fall or spring, in drills two feet apart, the plants six inches apart in the drills. The seeds, which grow in pods, are very numerous, and are said to be valuable for chickens. Now, too, commence to bloom the numerous eupatoriums, or bonesets, or thoroughworts (Fig, 97), which fill the marshes of our country, and the hives as well, with their rich golden nectar—precursors of that profusion of bloom of this composite order, whose many species are even now budding in preparation for the sea of flowers which will deck the marsh-lands of August and September. Wild bergamot, too,Monarda fistulosa, which, like the thistles, is of importance to the apiarist, blooms in July.

Fig. 95.—Button Bush.

Fig. 96.—Rocky Mountain Bee-Plant.

The little shrub of our marshes, appropriately named button-bush,Cephalanthus occidentalis, (Fig, 95), also shares the attention of the bees with the linden; while apiarists of the South find the sour-wood, or sorrel tree,Oxydendrum arboreum, a valuable honey tree. This belongs to the Heath family, which includes the far-famed heather bloom of England. It also includes our whortleberry, cranberry, blueberry, and one plant which has no enviable reputation, as furnishing honey, which is very poisonous, even fatal to those who eat, the mountain laurel,Kalmia latifolia. Yet, a near relative of the SouthAndromeda nitida, is said to furnish beautiful and wholesome honey in great quantities. The Virginia creeper also blooms in July. I wish I could say that this beautiful vine, transplendent in autumn, is a favorite with the honey-bee. Though it often, nay always, swarms with wild bees when in blossom, yet I never saw a honey-bee visit the ample bloom amidst its rich, green, vigorous foliage. Now, too, the St. John's wort,Hypericum, with its many species, both shrubby and herbaceous, offers bountiful contributions to the delicious stores of the honey-bee. The catnip, too,Nepeta cataria, and our cultivated asparagus—which if uncut in spring will bloom in June—so delectable for the table, and so elegant for trimming table meats and for banquets in autumn, come now to offer their nectarian gifts.

Fig. 97.—Boneset.

The cultivated buckwheat,Fagopyrum esculentum, (Fig, 98), usually blooms in August, as it is sown the first of July—three pecks per acre is the amount to sow—but by sowing the first of June, it may be made to bloom the middle of July, when there is generally, in most localities, an absence of nectar-secreting flowers. The honey is inferior in color and flavor, though some people prefer this to all other honey. The silver-leaf buckwheat blooms longer, has more numerous flowers, and thus yields more grain than the common variety.

Now, too, come the numerous golden-rods. The species of this genus,Solidago(Fig, 99), in the Eastern United States, number nearly two-score, and occupy all kinds of soils, and are at home on upland, prairie and morass. They yield abundantly of rich, golden honey, with flavor that is unsurpassed by any other. Fortunate the apiarist who can boast of a thicket of Solidagoes in his locality.

Fig. 98.—Buckwheat.

Fig. 99.—Golden-Rod.

Fig. 100.—Aster.

The many plants usually styled sun-flowers, because of their resemblance to our cultivated plants of that name, which deck the hill-side, meadow and marsh-land, now unfurl their showy involucres, and open their modest corollas, to invite the myriad insects to sip the precious nectar which each of the clustered flowers secretes. Our cultivated sun-flowers, I think, are indifferent honey plants, though some think them big with beauty, and their seeds are relished by poultry. But the asters (Fig, 100), so wide-spread, thebeggar-ticks,Bidens, and Spanish-needles of our marshes, the tick-seed,Coreopsis, also, of the low, marshy places, with hundreds more of the great family Compositæ, are replete with precious nectar, and with favorable seasons make the apiarist who dwells in their midst jubilant, as he watches the bees, which fairly flood the hives with their rich and delicious honey. In all of this great family, the flowers are small and inconspicuous, clustered in compact heads, and when the plants are showy with bloom, like the sun-flowers, the brilliancy is due to the involucre, or bracts which serve as a frill to decorate the more modest flowers.

I have thus mentioned the most valuable honey plants of our country. Of course there are many omissions. Let all apiarists, by constant observation, help to fill up the list.

I am often asked what books are best to make apiarists botanists. I am glad to answer this question, as the study of botany will not only be valuable discipline, but will also furnish abundant pleasure, and more, give important practical information. Gray's Lessons, and Manual of Botany, in one volume, published by Ivison, Phinney, Blakeman & Co., New York, is the most desirable treatise on this subject.

It will pay well for the apiarist to decorate his grounds with soft and silver maples, for their beauty and early bloom. If his soil is rich, sugar maples and lindens may well serve a similar purpose. The Judas tree, too, and tulip trees, both North and South, may well be made to ornament the apiarist's home. For vines, obtain the wistarias.

Sow and encourage the sowing of Alsike clover and silver-leaf buckwheat in your neighborhood. Be sure that your wife, children and bees, can often repair to a large bed of the new giant or grandiflora mignonette, and remember that it, with cleome and borage, blooms till frost. Study the bee plants of your region, and then study the above table, and provide for a succession, remembering that the mustards, rape and buckwheat may be made to bloom almost at pleasure, by sowingat the proper time. Don't forget that borage and the mustards seem comparatively indifferent to wet weather. Be sure that all waste places are stocked with motherwort, catnip, asters, etc. (SeeAppendix, page 289).

The above dates are only true for the most part in Michigan and Northern Ohio, and for more Southern latitudes must be varied, which by comparison of a few, as the fruit trees, becomes no difficult matter.

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