OR, MANUAL OF THB APIARY. 449 



that each of two colonies gathered 450 pounds of honey from 

 this plant ; and that his entire apiary averaged 250 pounds, all 

 from heartsease. The honey is quite light-colored, and very 

 excellent in quality. 



The odd shrub, Hercules' club (Aralia spinosa), is grown 

 as a curiosity North, but is indigenous in Kentucky and Ten- 

 nessee, and yields abundant nectar. It blooms at Lookout 

 Mountain early in August, just after the sourwood. 



Now come the numerous goldenrods. The species of the 

 genus Solidago (Fig. 250), in the Eastern United States, num- 

 ber nearly two score, and occupy all kinds of soils, and are at 

 home on upland, prairie and morass. These abound in all 

 parts of the United States. They yield abundance of rich, 

 golden honey, with flavor that is unsurpassed by any other. 

 Fortunate the apiarist who can boast of a thicket of Solidagos 

 in his locality. 



The many plants usually styled sunflowers, because of 

 their resemblance to our cultivated plants of that name, which 

 deck the hillside, meadow and marsh land, now unfurl their 

 showy involucres, and open their modest corollas, to invite the 

 myriad insects to sip the precious nectar which each of the 

 clustered flowers secretes. Our cultivated sunflowers, I think, 

 are indifi^erent honey-plants, though some think them big 

 with beauty, and their seeds are relished by poultry. But the 

 numerous species of asters (Fig. 251), so wide-spread, the beg- 

 gar-ticks and Spanish-needles, Bidens, of our marshes, the 

 tick-seed. Coreopsis, also, of the low, marshy places, with 

 hundreds more of the great family Composite, are replete with 

 precious nectar, and with favorable seasons make the apiarist 

 who dwells in their midst jubilant, as he watches the bees 

 which fairly flood the hives with the rich and delicious honey. 

 The Hon. J. M. Hambaugh found Spanish-needles— Coreopsis 

 —very abundant in the low flats of Illinois. Almost every 

 year it gave much very thick and excellent honey. It weighed 

 twelve pounds to the gallon. Often the bees took over twelve 

 pounds daily for more than a week at a time. For several 

 years, also, those fifty colonies of bees stored over a ton of this 

 most excellent honey each season. In all of this great family, 

 the flowers are small and inconspicuous, clustered in compact 



