17(3 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



May 



thing good to eat, and pleasant to the taste, 

 to commit themselves so far. I well remem- 

 ber the first taste I had of the mountain 

 sage honey. Mr. Langstroth was visiting me 

 at the time, and his exclamations were much 

 like my own, only that he declared it was al- 

 most identical in flavor with the famed hon- 

 ey of Ilymettus, of which he had received a 

 sample some years ago. Well, this honey of 

 Ilymettus, which has been celebrated both 

 in poetry and prose for ages past, was gath- 

 ered from the mountain thyme, and the bot- 

 any tells us that thyme and sage not only be- 

 long to the same family, but are closely re- 

 lated. Therefore it is nothing strange, if 

 Mr. Langstroth was right, in declaring our 

 California honey to be almost, if not quite, 

 identical in flavor with the honey of Ilymet- 

 tus. This species of sage grows along the 

 sides of the mountain, and blossoms success- 

 ively, as the season advances ; that is, the 

 bees first commence work on it in the val- 

 leys, and then gradually fly higher up, as the 

 blossoms climb the mountain side, giving 

 them a much longer season than we have in 

 regions not mountainous. Below we give a 

 cut of the plant. 



CALIFORNIA WHITE MOUNTAIN SAGE. 



One striking peculiarity of this honey is, 

 that it does not candy, but remains limpid, 

 during the severest winter Aveather. I have 

 taken a sample so thick that the tumbler 

 containing it might be turned bottom up- 



ward without its running at all, and placed 

 it out in the snow, in the dead of winter, and 

 failed to crystallize it. This is a very valua- 

 ble quality of it, if it is invariably the case ; 

 for we all know full well, that the candying 

 tendency is a great drawback to the sale of 

 extracted honey. I presume the honey 

 should be fully ripened in the hive, to have 

 it possess this property, as it is well known 

 that perfectly ripened clover honey will often 

 possess this same property here, while un- 

 ripened honey, of any kind, is much disposed 

 to candy at the approach of cool weather. I 

 believe some effort has been made to culti- 

 vate this plant; perhaps a soil that raises 

 pennyroyal naturally, would suit it, as they 

 are nearly allied, and I have been told that 

 pennyroyal yields considerable quantities of 

 honey, on the waste lands of Kelley's island, 

 in Lake Erie. 



It has been said, that one soon tires of this 

 beautiful aromatic flavor of the mountain 

 sage, and that, for a steady diet, the white 

 clover honey of the Western Reserve far out- 

 rivals it. This may be so ; for, as a general 

 thing, I believe people usually tire of these 

 strong and distinct flavors in honey, like 

 those of basswood and mountain sage. For 

 all that, dear reader, if you have never tast- 

 ed mountain sage honey, and are a lov- 

 er of honey, there is a rich treat in store 

 for you, when you do come across some. 



Since I have been writing about the sage, 

 L have concluded to have a bed of it on my 

 honey farm, where it will be a curiosity to 

 visitors, even if it does not yield honey 

 here as it does in California. Now let us 

 see who will have the nicest flower garden 

 of honey plants. Not a patch all choked up 

 witli weeds, and scattered about in wild 

 disorder, but a real pretty little garden. You 

 can roll up your sleeves and set to work at it 

 this very minute, if you wish. 



TUR37XF. The turnip, mustard, cab- 

 bage, rape, etc., are all members of one fam- 

 ily, and, if I am correct, all bear honey, 

 when circumstances are favorable. The 

 great enemy of most of these in our locality 

 {especially of the rape), is the little black cab- 

 bage flea. The turnip escapes this pest, by 

 being sown in the fall, and were it not that 

 it comes in bloom at almost the same time 

 when the fruit trees do, I should consider it 

 one of the most promising honey plants. 



In the summer of 1877, Mr. A. W. Kaye, 

 of Pewee Valley, Ky., sent me some seed of 

 what is called the "Seven Top Turnip," say- 

 ing that his bees had gathered more pollen 



