HONEY AND ITS SOURCES. 195 



home decoration. The inconspicuous blossoms of many- 

 trees, the wee modest wild flower, scarcely noticed by 

 passers by, furnish abundant pasturage for Bees. Many 

 persons who have lived in the country all their lives are 

 scarcely aware that our noblest forest trees have flowers 

 at all, but from the brave old oak and the wide-spreading 

 beech. Bees gather many a pound of honey. An avenue 

 of limes or sycamores, a field of beans or white clover, 

 forms a very El-dorado for the busy Bees, their pleasant 

 hum on the snowy hawthorn, or the sweet smelling sallow 

 (palm as it is commonly called), is very noticeable when 

 Nature is awakening from the gloomy sleep of winter, 

 and our thoughts and feelings are glad with the prospect 

 of returning summer. Where large heaths abound, the 

 Bees have a second harvest, and it is a common practice 

 in such localities for Bee-keepers to send their hives to 

 the moors for about two months, the trouble and cost 

 being amply repaid by the immense weight of honey 

 brought home, which the common heather yields freely 

 during August and September. Mignonette, borage, 

 honeysuckle, hyacinth, crocus, laurustinus, lavender, lily, 

 primrose, and many other flowers are visited by Bees. The 

 arable fields supply buckwheat, beans, mustard, clover, 

 and Lucerne, which all give an abundant supply of honey. 

 Borage has the reputation of being the best of all Bee 

 flowers. It blossoms continually from June till November, 

 and is frequented by Bees, even in moist weather. The 

 honey from it is of superior quality, and an acre would 

 support a large number of stocks. In America much of 

 the great harvest of honey is obtained from the limes 

 and wild sage ; the Bee-keepers are also in the habit of 

 sowing the seeds of many well-known honey- yielding 

 plants on purpose for the use of the Bees. 



Dwellers in the country cannot fail to have observed 

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