512 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



June IS 



NOTES OF TRAVEL. 



The Mountain Sages of California ; where they 

 Grow and How they Look. 



BY E. K. ROOT. 



Californiii white-sage honey has obtained 

 a reputation that is world-wide. It has 

 been sent from the Pacific Coast around 

 the Horn, to England, almost by the boat- 

 load. It is sent overland across the conti- 

 nent to the Eastern markets to the extent, 

 it is said, of hundreds of cars, depending- 

 on the season. The best quality of this 

 honey is stj'led " water- white, " and it is, 

 in fact, lighter colored than any honey we 

 have except willow-herb, of Michigan, and 

 the catclaw, of Texas. But white-sage hon- 

 ey is not water- white, strictly speaking; 

 but it is really lighter-colored than our bass- 

 wood or white clover. 



Another remarkable quality of sage is its 

 heaviness of body, and its tendency to re- 

 main liquid. It was once thought it never 

 candied ; but a more correct statement is 



that it does do so but only under the most 

 favorable circumstances. 



The only objection to the honey is that it 

 does not have enoug^h flavor to suit many 

 who have been brought up on basswood and 

 clover; and even the rich thick alfalfa that 

 has that beautiful minty taste does not have 

 flavor enough for some. 



Although sage honey is abundant in 

 quantity, pleasing in flavor, and heavy in 

 body, the plants themselves that produce it 

 are very insignificant, and quite ordinary- 

 looking. The flowers are small, and the 

 plants themselves of a pale green or gray- 

 ish color, and weed-like in appearance. 

 One would never suppose, by looking at any 

 of the sages, that they would be so fruitful 

 of nectar; but, as it often happens, the most 

 insignificant flowers give the richest and 

 finest honey; for, indeed, nature has so pro- 

 vided that what the plant lacks in display 

 of color and in size of flower it makes up 

 in honey in order that the bee, nature's 

 greatest pollinator, may come in and per- 

 form its share in scattering the fertilizing 

 dust from flower to flower. 



FIG. 1. — STEMS AND BLOSSOMS OF CALIFORNIA WHITE SAGE. 



