154 



The Country Gentlcinaiis Magazine 



The strong and rather pleasant scent of 

 lime-trees in flower, and the music of bees 

 busy at work on them, indicate that honey in 

 abundance is collected from them in the 

 month of July. 



Wimberry, raspberry, and brambleberry 

 deserve honourable mention as honey pro- 

 ducing plants. Wimberry bushes — acres, and 

 scores of acres of them — abound in moorland 

 districts. They flower early, and are rich in 

 honey; but as few bees are permanently kept 

 in such neighbourhoods, the honey produced 

 by them is lost. 



Borage, mignonette, heliotrope, buckwheat, 

 and bird's-foot trefoil (lotus corniculatus), 

 gorse, and broom, are useful in their day. 



White or Dutch clover is the queen of honey 

 plants. It is widely cultivated in this coun- 

 try, and continues to flower a long time. In 

 Scotland, the farmers use more white clover 

 seed in laying down the land in grass 

 than the farmers of England; hence the 

 clover-fields are better there than here. And 

 the use of lime and bone-dust as manures has 

 a great influence in the production of clover. 

 In travelling to Edinburgh some years ago by 

 the Caledonian line, whole fields white with 

 clover-flowers caught my eye, and made me 

 take a second look to see if the whiteness 

 came from daisy-flowers. AVhole districts, 

 unsurpassed for excellence, met my eye 

 during a visit to my native land, many of 

 which hardly ever received a complimentary 

 visit from bees, and for this reason, that 

 there were no bee-keepers in these districts. 



I verily believe there is more wealth (in 

 honey) in the clover and heather fields of 

 Scotland than there is in the gold-fields of 

 Sutherland — if not of California ; but few 

 people know it, otherwise bees would be kept 

 to collect it. 



Pastures eaten bare by cattle are, of course, 

 not so good for honey as those less severely 

 eaten. And apart altogether from the bee- 

 keeper's view of the matter, the wisdom of 

 the farmer in putting too many cattle into his 

 fields is not very evident. Bare pastures keep 

 cattle constantly on the trudge, wasting their 

 substance in seeking food which, when 



easily obtained where grass is abundant, goes 

 to form either milk or flesh. 



Sheep are fonder of clover than cattle, and 

 more able to nibble off its young heads; 

 hence sheep-pasture is inferior ir. a honey 

 point of view to cow-pasture. " A land of 

 milk and honey" is a more congruous term 

 than one of " mutton and honey." 



Clover is more uncertain in its yield of 

 honey than most other plants, inasmuch as 

 it is more easily affected by cold nights than 

 they. Three years ago, a stock-hive from 

 which one swarm only was obtained was 

 weighed every morning during the hot 

 weather of July. On the 17th and i8th it 

 gained 12 lb. in weight, next two days only 

 4 lb., and on the following day it gained 

 4 lb. The differences of honey gathered was 

 attributed to the variation of night tempera- 

 ture, for the one day was as hot as the other. 

 Heather-blossoms, during the months of 

 August and September, yield a harvest of 

 honey prodigiously and marvellously large. 

 This is so well-known, that in Scotland, and 

 some parts of the Continent, there may be 

 seen cart-loads of bee-hives going to grouse- 

 land. Bee-keepers find that there is an 

 ample return for the trouble and expense 

 of taking bees to the moors, even though the 

 distance be 30 or 40 miles. On no spot of 

 Scotland can it be said that heather is not 

 within easy distance of it, so that all Scottish 

 bee-keepers can avail themselves of the honey 

 that is so abundantly produced by its pinky- 

 purplish blooms. To me it appears wonder- 

 ful that we have in England heather enough 

 for all the bees in the world. In Yorkshire 

 there are magnificent seas of it. On the hills 

 of Derbyshire, within 20 miles of Man- 

 chester, we find miles of heather that cannot 

 well be surpassed for excellence. In the 

 south, we find heather in Devon, Sussex, and 

 Hampshire. I have seen it, too, in Warwick- 

 shire; but of the quantity I cannot speak 

 from personal knowledge. In Ireland, Wales, 

 and the most northern counties of England, 

 it is as abounding and " come-at-able " as it 

 is in Scotland. Heather-honey is so different 

 in taste and appearance from other honey? 



