April, 1916. 



American Hee Journal 



Honey Flora of New England 



BY JOHN H. LOVELL. 

 {Pkotogral^hs bv the author.) 



MOT so very long ago, as geologists 

 reckon time. New England was 

 covered with an immense sheet of 

 ice thousands of feet in thickness. 

 Slowly the great glacier moved sea- 

 ward. The downward pressure was 

 enormous — 450 pounds to the square 

 inch for every thousand feet of ice. The 

 forests, the entire vegetation, even the 

 soil was swept away. The underlying 

 rocks were planed, furrowed, ground 

 down, pulverized as by a huge mill- 

 stone. There was visible only a bar- 

 ren sheet of ice and snow. 



But at last the ice melted and the 

 rivers were filled with floods and the 

 valleys with great lakes. The new soil, 

 composed of clay, sand, grave) and 

 boulders, with large areas of barren 

 ledges, was far from being propitious 

 to a new growth of plants. Do you 

 wonder that New England has a mea- 

 ger flora, or that its vegetation is 

 starved and scanty ? How widely dif- 

 ferent are the conditions in California, 

 which was never covered with ice. 

 Here the valleys and foot-hills display 

 a multitude of beautiful and varied 

 flowers with more species than are to 

 be found elsewhere in this country in 

 an equal area. 



oAsa result of the glacial period New 

 England contains comparatively few 

 honey plants. Most of the honey is 

 stored from white clover and the gold- 

 enrod, although in special localities 

 sumac, fruit bloom, tobacco and other 

 species rise to local importance. The 

 majority of the apiaries are of small 

 size, averaging from four to six colo- 

 nies, although in favored sections 100, 

 or a larger number have been reported. 

 According to the census of 1910, there 

 was during the preceeding ten years a 



Fig. I— Common hoary alder [Al/nis imiuut 

 (/..} Mociich). The alder is the earliest com- 

 mon source of pollen in New England. The 

 flower-buds are formed the preceding sea- 

 son and open long before the leaves have 

 appeared. The flowers are wind-polli- 

 nated and nectarless. 



large decrease both in the number of 

 beekeepers and colonies. Certainly 

 any one would hestitate to attempt to 

 gain, by present methods, a livelihood 

 from bees in New England. 



No serious attempt has yet been 

 made to list the honey plants, and the 

 honey flora is totally ignored by most 

 beekeepers. In the case of the little 

 bee-yards, managed largely on " the 

 let-alone " plan, it probably does not 

 make much difference whether it is 

 well known or not. If, however, it 

 was desired to establish outapiaries a 

 thorough knowledge of the species 

 valuable to the beekeeper would be in- 

 dispensable in order to select the best 

 locations. With the exception of the 

 standard honey plants the crudest no- 

 tions are current as to what yields nec- 

 tar and what does not, and bumblebee 

 flowers, pollen flowers, wind-pollinated 

 flowers, and flowers with minute quan- 

 tities of nectar, are not infrequently 

 believed to be highly beneficial. 



In New England there is no spring, 

 and cold raw days continue up to the 

 middle or last of May, when in a warm 

 season summer makes a sudden ad- 

 vent. The first pollen in quantity is 

 offered by the nectarless alder {J/mts 

 incana), one of the commonest (Fig. 1) 

 shrubs, blooming the last of March or 

 early in April. In sheltered ravines I 

 have seen large numbers of honeybees 

 (the only bees then on the wing) gath- 

 ering the pollen; and in Maine they 

 are fortunate if their labors are not in- 

 terrupted by a snow storm. Like the 

 alder, the elm, hazel-nut, hickory, oak, 

 etc., are wind-pollinated, and are at 

 times visited by bees for pollen. 



But the procession of the honey 

 plants actually begins with the bloom- 

 ing of the willows. There are many 

 species, rich both in pollen and nectar' 

 while a month is covered by the suc- 

 cession of bloom. Among the more 

 noteworthy are the pussy willow, the 

 river-bank willow, and several intro- 

 duced trees, as Salix alba. Great com- 

 panies of wild bees also resort to the 

 willows and carry away a large share 

 of the flower food. I have never heard 

 of a surplus of honey being obtained 

 from the willows in New England; but 

 they are most helpful in tiding over 

 the inclement spring. 



The early herbaceous flowers, as the 

 anemones, bluets, violets, etc., are in 

 part wholly nectarless, or in part yield 

 very little nectar. The rare round- 

 leaved yellow violet is attractive to 

 bees, but it is an unusual event to see 

 a bee on a blue violet. Most of the 

 seed of the latter is produced by closed 

 flowers, near the roots, which never 

 open. Whole fields are colored yellow 

 by the dandelion. To my bees it is of 

 more value for pollen than for nectar ; 

 but Mr. J. E. Crane, of Middlebury, Vt., 

 writes me that he has had the brood- 

 chambers filled with dandelion honey 

 and that later it was carried above into 

 the supers. It is a dark amber and, 

 well ripened, has not an unpleasant 

 taste suggestive of the flowers. 



Both the red or swamp maple and 

 the rock maple yield considerable nec- 

 tar and are visited by many insects. 

 Large groves of the rock maple occur 

 in Vermont. The red maple has the 

 stamens (Fig. 2) and pistils (Fig. 3) on 

 different trees, and is, I should say, 

 rather the better honey plant of the 



two. Outside of the fruit trees there 

 are few other trees in New England 

 which are of much value to the bee- 

 keeper. The basswood is no longer 

 abundant, and neither is the locust, a 

 short lived tree, attacked by borers. 

 The horse chestnut is a bumblebee 

 flower, and the chestnut is wind-polli- 

 nated. 



Fruit bloom is a somewhat indefinite 

 term, but I shall use it to include all 

 plants producing edible fruits whether 

 trees or herbs, wild or cultivated. 

 Honey bees visit the apple and pear in 

 large numbers, and are often common 

 when no other insects are visible. 

 Their value as pollinators is beyond 

 calculation, for many apples, pears, 

 plums and cherries are wholly or par- 



FiG. 2— Red or swamp maple [Aicrruirinn L ). 

 Staminate flowers; the numerous stamens 

 are clearly shown; the flowers yield nec- 

 tar and are sweet scented. The flowers 

 appear before the leaves, which indicates 

 that earlier in the history of the species 

 they wrre wind-pollinated. 



tially self-sterile. The pear seems to 

 secrete more nectar than the apple; it 

 accumulates in the cup-like receptacle, 

 and in favorable weather is said to 

 overflow and drop to the ground. The 

 plums, especially the Japanese plums, 

 which produce their flowers in immense 

 profusion, are much more frequently 

 visited by solitary bees of the genera 

 Andrena and Halictus than by honey- 

 bees. They contain little nectar. The 

 wild choke cherry is very attractive to 

 insects, and I have seen clouds hover- 

 ing about the bushes. The raspberry is 

 an excellent honey plant, but the black- 

 berry is of little importance. There is 

 not much nectar in the flowers of the 

 latter, and honeybees do not visit them 

 in large numbers, and when present 

 are usually seeking pollen. For every 

 honeybee there are ten wild bees, and 

 the latter may be easily collected by 



