The Valuable Honey Plants. 339 



I am informed by Prof. W. W. Tracy, that the gardeners 

 in the vicinity of Boston keep bees that they may perform 

 this duty. Mr. Root found in New York a greenhouse, 

 wliere bees were kept at work all winter, to save the other- 

 wise necessary hand fertilization, which was very laborious 

 and expensive. That bees ever injui'e blossoms and thus 

 effect damage to the fruitage of such plants as buckwheat — 

 or to any plants, as is sometimes claimed — is utterly absurd 

 and without foundation. 



But the principal source of honey is still from the flowers. 



WHAT ARE THE VALUABLE HONEY PLANTS? 



In the northeastern part of our country the chief reliance, 

 for May, is the fruit blossoms, willows, and sugar maples. 

 In June, white clover, Alsike clover, and raspberries yield 

 largely of the most attractive honey, both as to appearance 

 and flavor. In July, the incomparable basswood makes 

 both bees and apiarist jubilant. In August, buckwheat 

 offers a tribute, which we welcome, though it be dark and 

 pungent in flavor, while with us in Michigan, August and 

 September give us a profusion of bloom which yields to 

 no other in the richness of its capacity to secrete honey, 

 and is not cut off till the autumn frosts — usually about 

 September 15. 



Thousands of acres of willow-herb (Fig. 184), golden 

 rod, boneset, asters, and other autumn flowers of our new 

 northern counties, as yet have blushed unseen, with fra- 

 grance wasted. This imoccupied territory, unsurpassed in 

 its capability for fruit production, covered with grand forests 

 of maple and basswood, and spread with the richest of 

 autumn bloom, offers opportunities to the practical apiarist 

 rarely equaled except in Texas and the Pacific States. In 

 these localities one or two hundred pounds a season to the 

 colony and its increase, is no surprise to the apiarist, while 

 even four or five hundred are not isolated cases. 



In the following table will be found a list of valuable 

 honey plants. Those in the first column are annual, bien- 

 nial or perennial; the annual being enclosed in a paren- 

 thesis thus: (); the biennial enclosed in brackets thus: []; 

 while those in the second column are shrubs or trees; the 



