36 MANUAL OF THE APIAEY. 



grape clusters, which in no instance were mutilated. I have thus been led to 

 doubt if bees over attack sound grapes, though quick to improve the opportuni- 

 ties which the oriole's beak and the stronger jaws of wasps offer them. Still, 

 Prof. Eiley feels, sure that bees are sometimes thus guilty, and Mr. Bid well tells 

 me he has frequently seen bees rend sound grapes, which they did with their 

 feet. Yet, if this is the case, it is certainly of rare occurrence, and is more 

 than compensated by the great aid which the bees afEord the fruit-grower in the 

 great work of cross-fertilization, which is imperatively necessary to his success, 

 as has been so well shown by Dr. Gray and Mr. Ohas. Darwin. It is true that 

 cross-f ertihzation of the flowers, which can only be accomplished by insects, and 

 early in the season by the honey-bee, is often, if not always necessary to a full 

 yield of fruit and vegetables. Even then, if Mr. Bid well and Prof. Eiley are 

 right, and the bee does, rarely — for surely this is very rare, if ever — destroy 

 grapes, stilly they are, beyond any possible question, invaluable aids to the 

 poniologist. 



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



WHAT AEE THE VALUABLE HONEY PLANTS? 



In the northeastern part of our country the chief reliance for May is the fruit- 

 blossoms, willows, and sugar maple. In June white clover yields largely of the 

 most delicious honey, botli as to appearance and flavor. In July the incompar- 

 able bass-wood makes both bees and apiarist jubilant. In August buckwheat 

 ofEers its 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 oif till the autumn frosts, — usually about Sept. 15. Thousands of acres 

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

 counties, as yet have blushed unseen, with fragrance wasted. This unoccupied 

 territory, unsurpassed in its capability for fruit production, covered with grand 

 forests of maple and bass-wood, and spread with the richest of autumn bloom, 

 ofEers opportunities to the practical apiarist rarely equalled except in the Pacific 

 States, and not even there, Avhen other privileges are considered. In these 

 localities two or three hundred pounds to the colony is no -surprise to the api- 

 arist, 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 herbaceous or perennial, the herbaceous being enclosed 

 in a parenthesis tlius: () while those in the second are shrubs or trees, the 

 names of shrubs being enclosed in a parenthesis. The date of commencement 

 of bloom is, of course, not invariable. The one appended is about average for 

 Central Michigan. Those plants whose names appear in small capitals yield 

 very superior honey. Those with a line beneath are useful for other purposes 

 than honey secretion. Those with a * are native or very common in Michigan. 

 Those written in the plural refer to more than one species, while those followed 

 by a f are very numerous in species. Of course I have not named all, as that 

 would include some hundreds which have been observed at the college, taking 

 nearly all of the two great orders Gompositee and Kosacise. I have only aimed 

 to give the most important, omitting many foreign plants of notoriety, as I have 

 had no personal knowledge of them : 



