HONEY AND HONEY PLANTS. 547 



a great amount of honey, but unfortunately there are no longer 

 many trees to furnish blossoms and nectar. This honey is darker 

 than that from clover, and has also a peculiar odor, which is un- 

 pleasant to many persons. 



The last plant of value as a honey producer is buckwheat, 

 which begins to blossom in August and continues until frost. 

 The honey from buckwheat is dark and has a taste of its own 

 which is not offensive. This honey is very rich, and a taste for it 

 is speedily acquired. The cultivation of this plant is becoming, 

 year by year, more restricted, and is now confined to the newer 

 and more mountainous sections. 



Those regions where the land is all under cultivation have 

 only the white clover to depend upon for honey, unless there are 

 a few basswood trees along the streams, while in the mountainous 

 areas will be found clover, basswood, raspberries, and buckwheat 

 It takes but a moment, then, to decide where one could best h'ope 

 to succeed in bee-keeping. 



We place among the plants which produce a small or variable 

 amount of honey the mint and figwort families ; also the asters and 

 golden rods. Of the first family, the mints, we have the hore- 

 hound, the sage, bergamot, the catnip, and the motherwort, all 

 producing considerable honey. Of this group, the most remark- 

 able is the motherwort (Leonurus cardiaca), which is constantly 

 visited by bees while it is in blossom. The supply of honey is 

 limited only by the number of plants, which at present in most 

 places is small. It has been suggested that this plant be culti- 

 vated for the honey it yields. It is now a rather unsightly weed. 

 The figwort (Scrophularia nodosa) is an excellent honey plant. 

 It has a square stem, and exteriorly a good deal resembles the 

 mints. It is a worthless weed except for its honey-producing 

 flowers. It is not very abundant. The wild mustard, the teasel, 

 the boneset, the wild sunflowers, the Spanish needles, and the snap- 

 dragons, as also the smartweeds, produce some honey, though in 

 most places the total is of little value. In Michigan, Prof. A. J. 

 Cooke holds the golden-rods in high esteem as honey producers. 

 In Pennsylvania the writer can not find that they are of any value 

 at all. On newly cleared land the sumac springs up, and it is held 

 by some to be a valuable source of honey, and that considerable 

 amounts are some years collected from it. 



The tulip poplar, popularly called "poplar," also produces 

 honey in its beautiful large blossoms, but the tree is too scarce to 

 be of much value to the bee-keeper. The blossoms of the black- 

 berry, like their near relatives, the raspberries, are honey pro- 

 ducers. The milkweeds are also secreters of honey. Curiously, 

 the pollen of these plants often sticks to the heads of the bees 

 and disables them so much that they perish. Prof. A. J. Cooke 



