BEE MANUAL. 295 
own experience in the Thames and Waikato districts, some 
thirty miles south of Auckland. 
Here the dawn of the honey season opens with the willows 
and early flowering peaches. These blossom about the beginning 
of September, and enable the bees very quickly to replenish the 
stores of honey, at this time nearly exhausted. 
Then follow other fruit trees, dandelions, daisies, hawthorn, 
wild rose, some native trees, &c., and the honey season may be 
said to have fully commenced in October, when clover begins 
to blossom, and lasts without cessation, in a fairly good season, 
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Fig, 139.—GIANT MIGNONETTE (Reseda gigantea). 
till near the latter end of February, when the hot dry weather 
causes a break, which lasts till the rains commence again 
(usually in the latter part of March); when, if the weather is 
showery, a considerable amount of honey will be gathered from 
different sources through the latter part of March, April, and 
a part of May. 
