GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



E.G.Baldwin 



FLORIDA SUNSHINE {^^^^^^^^ 



CALLED BY ANOTHER NAME. 



The ability of locally applied 

 names of plants and shrubs and 

 trees to mislead the best intentions 

 is almost startling. Several years 

 ago a beeman from northern Flor- 

 ida or southern Georgia said to me, 

 " We count on the holly for our surest yield 

 of early honey." When I tried to identify 

 it, whether our white holly of this section, 

 whether it was an allied species, or what, I 

 could glean nothing from his meager de- 

 scription and vague terms. Later on, an- 

 other beeman from further north in Georgia 

 said about the same thing, substantially, but 

 he used the word "gallberry." Three or four 

 summ.ers ago I was impressed with the value 

 of a modest-looking shrub that grew not 

 over two or three feet high along the water- 

 courses, and near the hammocks of even the 

 pine lands near here — the value, that is, as a 

 bridge between the cessation of the citrus 

 honey and the opening of the palmetto 

 honey-flow. On identification the latter 

 shrub proved to be the inkberry {Ilex gla- 

 bra), and as such I always spoke of it; it is 

 thus called in Small (Flora of the South- 

 eastern U. S.) and in Baerecke (Ferns and 

 Flowering Plants, Atlantic Section, Middle 

 Florida) ; so also in Chapman (Flora of 

 the S. E. United States). All called the 

 plant I knew " the inkberry.'^ Not one of 

 them mentioned " gallberry," nor once 

 quoted it as even a local name for any jDlant 

 or shrub. I was surprised and not a little 

 puzzled — for all beemen from the Carolinas 

 to the Keys seemed to know of gallberry 

 and its value for the bees, tho none knew 

 inkberry. At last the mystery has been 

 solved. The two are identical — -inkberry 

 and gallberry! Did you ever? And not 

 one of the named authorities mentions gall- 

 berry, and not a local beeman nor any one I 

 ever conversed with knew of or used the 

 nam.e inkberry ! Such a complete diver- 

 gence of terms I have never before known. 

 But at last the fox is run to earth, and has 

 been captured. Henceforth I shall speak 

 to our friend the inkberry and call him 

 familiarly by the old term, the common 

 term, "gallberry." It reminds me of the 

 difficulty I had in identifying the four tupe- 

 los of the northwest section, the so-called 

 "white tupelo," the "black tupelo," the 

 " black gum," and the " water gum," tho the 

 local beemen call them generally the black 

 and the white tupelos. 



THE PROSPECTS FROM THE MANGROVE. 



At this time the buds of the mangrove 

 (black mangrove, Avicennia niPida) are 



opening, and look fair for a good crop; but 

 one never can do more than make a guess 

 about the mangrove. It never lacks for 

 water, drouth never affects it, for it grows 

 on the islands and shores of land that is 

 always moist from the salt water of the 

 tides. It never fails to bloom profusely. 

 But that is all we can be sure of. Vigorous 

 growth and profusion of bloom avail noth- 

 ing unless the weather conditions are per- 

 fect ; nor does any one know what these 

 conditions are that make perfection of 

 weather conditions for the mangrove. With 

 the i^almetto, beemen can observe that ex- 

 cessive drouth during blooming time, or 

 excessive rain, will lessen the flow of nectar 

 from that source. With the mangrove it is 

 all conjecture. We know it yielded mon- 

 strously (no other word will suit it) before 

 the big freeze of 1894 ; since that time it has 

 been steadily coming into larger and larger 

 proportions and size, gaining some of its 

 old-tifiie api^earanee, tho none of the shrubs 

 can yet be called really trees in the vicinity 

 of Hawks Park and New Smyrna, the old 

 Mecca of beemen when mangTove gave such 

 unheard-of yields. It has not yet, however, 

 come back into its old-time secretion of 

 nectar. Whether it will ever do so, remains 

 for time to determine. Beemen hope that it 

 may — naturally so. The yield seems better 

 on the mainland, but the quality seems a 

 little better on the Keys off the southeast 

 coast. This honey is light in color, tho not 

 quite so light as jDure orange. It is not 

 quite so good in flavor as palmetto or 

 orange. It candies easily and hard, almost 

 as firm as white-clover honey. The fact 

 that it grows only across bodies of water 

 entails a considerable loss of the flying bees 

 across the salt water to the mangTove-fields. 

 I have seen, on windy days, hundreds of 

 bees swimming only to drown on the water 

 between the islands and the mainland — bees 

 that had been unable to combat the high 

 winds with heavy loads of honey. When 

 mangrove yields well a bee can gather a load 

 from a single blossom, and then leave some. 

 This is no fairy tale, but actual fact. It is 

 probably most often the old bees that per- 

 ish thus — old bees whose wings are frayed 

 and wasted. The cabbage palmetto (Sabal 

 palmetto) blooms right along with the man- 

 grove in point of time; but on the higher 

 land — the islands that are above tide-water, 

 and on the hammock lands that are not 

 submerged by salt water. It is a pictur- 

 esque sight to stand on one of the shell 

 mounds that characterize the East Coast and 

 look for miles over a gi-een sea of mangrove 



