BEE MANUAL. 281 



' ' In the middle of November the tree rata and pohutukawa begins, 

 and lasts to the middle of February. The white rata (creeper) begins 

 in December, and lasts till April ; red rata (creeper) begins in January, 

 and lasts till May ; koromiko begins in January, and lasts till June ; 

 nikau begins in February ; puriii begins in March, and lasts till No- 

 vember, although it is easy to get a specimen all the year ; hohere (it 

 has a thick stringy bark), kohekohe cedar, mangeo, and another I do 

 not know the name of, all bloom in April, May, and June. These are 

 the principal trees we get honey from here. There are plenty of other 

 trees that bees work upon, but they either give honey in small quan- 

 tities, or we have not got them in sufficient number for the bees to 

 store honey from. " 



In the Thames district, about as far south of Auckland as 

 the Barrier Island is north of it, my own experience is as 

 follows : Kowai commences to blossom in September, as also 

 tauro and mahoi — the first lasts four weeks, the second sixteen, 

 and the last eight ; hinau in November, lasting four weeks ; 

 rata and flax commence in December, and blossom four or five 

 weeks; cabbage-palm, beginning of December, lasting four weeks. 

 Besides those enumerated, there are other native trees and 

 shrubs which blossom between October and March ; amongst 

 the best for honey are pohutukawa, kahikatea, puriri, matai, 

 tawai, tariri, miro, karaka, native fuchsia, and nikau. Tea-tree 

 blossoms in September, but yields no honey in the Thames 

 district. 



The honey from most of the native flora of New Zealand is 

 of a first-class quality, though not equal to that obtained from 

 white clover. Some of it granulates very slowly ; I have kept 

 samples nearly all through the winter without granulating. 



NATIVE FLORA OF AUSTRALIA. 



All the species of those two great families of trees so peculiar 

 to Australia, Eucalyptus and Acacia, are good for bee forage, 

 yielding both nectar and pollen in abundance, and, what is of 

 especial importance in a climate like that of most of the Aus- 

 tralasian colonies, where the bees can gather surplus honey 

 nearly all the year round, they seem as if specially designed 

 to supplement each other ; the eucalypti blooming, as a rule, 

 in the summer half, and the acacias in the winter half of the 

 year. 



