AUGUST 1, 1915 



635 







Bio-^ on plum blo«sotns promise perfect fruit. 

 Photographed by A. G. Lucier, Powell, Wyo. 



(juthuiiUi; uei-'tar from plum blos&um.-,. Tlie bee 

 can be plainly seen near the center of the picture: 

 Photographed by A. G. Lucier, Powell, Wyo. 



THE NEED OF EXACTNESSHN THE DISCUSSION OF HONEY-PLANTS 



BY C. F. BENDER 



All beekeepers seem to agree that buck- 

 wheat produces dark honey; that basswood 

 and the clovers produce light honey. Out- 

 side of this simple creed it seems A-ery easy 

 lo jret up a discussion as to the color and 

 quality of honey produced by any particu- 

 lar plant. 



It is not alwaj^s easy to say where the bees 

 are petting their honey. I have had honey 

 stored in supers when I could not even 

 guess what plant had produced it, and tliat 

 in a level country where I wa.s familiar with 

 every acre of ground, and rather well posted 

 as to the honey-producing flowers and their 

 season of bloom. But that is not the ride 

 witli me. Usually T know where the honey 

 is coming from, if there is enough to make 

 a show in supers, and sometimes I can be 

 sure tliat practically all is from one source. 



We often disagi'ee on such matters be- 

 cause we are talking about different things. 

 A brother in eastern Canada and one in Ill- 

 inois have a talk about aster honey, and 

 one says it is of light color and good flavor, 

 and the other says it is dark and strong. 



Neither describes the plant, tells the Latin 

 name, nor even the color of the flowei-. 

 Neither stops to consider that there are 

 more than forty species of the genus Aster 

 in the United States, and that of aster-like 

 i lowers, easily mistaken for them, there 

 are many hundreds. It is easier for me to 

 believe that the honej^ from related plants 

 may differ in quality than to believe that 

 rhe quality varies in the same plant in dif- 

 ferent localities. 



Before I had ever made any careful study 

 of plants I Avas skeptical about honey ever 

 being produced from goldenrod, as I never 

 could find a bee on it; but at Medina, Ohio, 

 I found two kinds of goldenrod gi'owing 

 side by side, blooming at the same time — 

 one a honey-producer and the other not, and 

 both were different from our Illinois spe- 

 cies. We have two species of Spanish nee- 

 dle Itere-— one with gorgeous yellow flowers 

 tliat the bees never visit; the other a modest 

 flower 'that sometimes gives some surplus. 

 Jn southern Kentucky I found bees on an- 

 other plant of the same genus, quite dif- 



