188.5 



cjLb:ANi.\c;s IN i;kk clj/iukk. 



417 



In addition to the plants named, arc man.v others 

 of more or less value; but the ^bove are, I thinlc, 

 the mostvaluablc ones. Many have had hi^h hopes 

 of securing' large crops of orange-blossom honey, 

 but I do not think the orange-bloom will prove any 

 more valuable than is our apple-bloom hei-e, and 

 probably not so much so. The quality of the honey 

 varies as elsewhere, according to the source. That 

 from mangrove stands at the head for quality as 

 well as quantity, it being peculiarly clear and white 

 in appearance— more so, if any thing, than any 

 honey we obtain in the Northern States east of the 

 Kockies. What distinctive Wavor it has is neither 

 so strong nor marked as either white-clover or lin- 

 den honey; and while this may be an objection to 

 some, to others it is otherwise. Many persons, my- 

 self among the number, prefer the mildest-tlavored 

 honey we can get; and to such I think mangrove 

 honey may be preferred even to white-clover honey. 

 Cabbage-palmetto honey is very similar to that from 

 mangrove, but not quite its ciiual, I think. That 

 from the other sources I have named will none of it 

 be ranked as white honey, neither is it genei-iilly as 

 dark as buckwheat honey. 



Honey of all kinds in Florida, so far as I have ob- 

 served, is thinner and of less body than our North- 

 ern honey; but this is easily corrected by the use of 

 sun evaporators, these being easily ojn'iated in 

 that land of sunshine. 



Before I enter on the important subject of loca- 

 tion, it may be well to give a sketch of our personal 

 wanderings in ditferent i)arts of Kloritbi. The first 

 winter we spent a few days at Lawtey, in Mradlord 

 Co., near the center of the .'^tate. The liuid at that 

 place is nearly Hat pine lands, interspei-sed wtth 

 small bay heads, and is the richest pine land I have 

 seen in Florida. We passed the largest i)art of the 

 winter, aliout ten weeks, some Ifi miles nearly east 

 of Tampa, in Hillsborough Co. This is a high pine- 

 land country, interspersed with occasional very 

 rich hammocks, also swamps and prairies. We 

 stopped while there with a ta.xiderniist whom I fre- 

 quently accompanied on his hunting excursions in 

 different directions in the surrounding country. I 

 also went a few miles west of Tampa, to the shores 

 of Old Tampa Hay, whire Dr. .1. M. Price, formerly 

 of Buffalo Grove, Iowa, then owned some bees, al- 

 though not at that time tliei-e in person. We weie 

 also at Manatee and Braidentown, on the .Manatee 

 River, and stopi)ed one day at Cedar Keys. 



The second winter we spent some time at tlie 

 same places we did the first winter; also stopped a 

 day or two in Jacksonville, the same time in St. Au- 

 gustine, some four or five weeks at New Smyrna, 

 where we met the first and only genuine bee-keep- 

 ers we saw while in Florida! While stopping here 

 we (wife and 1) were so fortunate as to nuike part 

 of a small party who chartered a five-ton sloop on 

 which we cruised some 1.50 miles south, being the 

 entire length of Hillsborough and Indian Kivers, to 

 .Uipiter Inlet and back again. These rivers, or, 

 more properly, lagoons, run near the coast their en- 

 tire length, in some places less than :iOO feet separat- 

 ing their waters from those of the ocean. This trip 

 lasted four weeks, and was the most enjoyable e.\- 

 perience we had while in Florida. 



Unfortunately our party were none of them in- 

 terested in bees, except ourselves, and we couldn't 

 ask them to stop and allow us to examine special 

 localities as thoroughly as we wished to; yet we 

 obtained a fair general idea-of that part of the east 



coast of Florida. We learned from personul obser- 

 vation, and from information obtained by a free 

 use of the Yankee trait of asking questions, that 

 the growth of mangrove quite abruptly terminated 

 some 15 miles south of New Smyrna, occurring again, 

 but not so profusely, at the head of Hillsborough 

 Lagoon. A small fringe of mangrove grows in 

 places along the edge of the Indian River, until we 

 get to the mouth of the San Sebastian Uiver, nearly 

 opposite which commences the islands which form 

 Indian-River Nariows, these islands being covered 

 with mangrove, and extending from ten to fifteen 

 miles along the river to nearly opposite Indian-Hiv- 

 er Inlet, near the site of old Fort Capron. But lit- 

 tle mangrove is found from here until we pass the 

 mouth of the St. Lucie River, and enter Jupiter 

 Narrows, where is another collection of islands 

 covered with mangrove. This is the last place 

 north of Jupiter Inlet where nningrove is found in 

 any great (juantities, and we found it utterly im- 

 possible to learn any thing about the growth of 

 this plant south of that point. 



There are two species of nningrove, the red and 

 the black, lioth growing in very similar situations, 

 only the black yielding honey. Prof. Cook says 

 this is not a true mangravi-; but as that is the only 

 name it is commonly known by, I will contiiuie to 

 to call it that. The red variety usually grows on 

 th? edges r)f the islands, with its roots partly in the 

 water, while the black grows more in the center of 

 the islands. This fact of the Itlack being partially 

 hidden behind a fringe of the red, prevented me 

 from learning for certain how large an amount of 

 black nningrove there actually is on the islands of 

 Indian River. 



This fact of there being two kinds of mangrove, 

 both growing in the same localities, and somewhat 

 resembling each other, entirely prevented our ob- 

 taining any information of value in reference to 

 the growth of this vahnible honey-plant on the 

 south-east, south, and south-west coasts of F'lorida, 

 although diligent inquiries were made of every one 

 we met. who was familiar with those sections. 

 Every one reported immense quantities of man- 

 groves in different locations around the coast, b\it 

 not a single iierson could say whether they were 

 tlie red or black varieties. By far the largest 

 amount of mangrove in Florida will, I think. Vie 

 found on the south-west coast between ( harlotti- 

 Harbor and Cai)e Sable; but whether there is a sin- 

 gle stick of the black variety among it all is more 

 than I could learn. 



Mr. Hart, of New Smyrna, w hom all your readers 

 know of, told me that he hoped to spend a winter in 

 the near future in making a cruise around the 

 Florida coast from his place to Charlotte Harbor, 

 investigating the honey resources of that section. 

 When he does this we can depend on reliable in- 

 formation from a section which may prove almost 

 a second California. I also hope to be able to make 

 a similar trip some time. In all I may say when 

 speaking of Florida as a whole, I do not include the 

 extreme north-western part of the State. For reia- 

 sons not necessary to detail, I have never tried to 

 obtain any particular information about that sec- 

 tion. 



I believe that nearly or quite all experienced bee- 

 keepers who have had the best opportunities for 

 getting posted about Florida have come to the con- 

 clusion, that, to obtain large paying crops of honey 

 year after year, one must be located within reach 



