92 MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS ON" APICULTURE. 
Clethra. — This is also known as black alder and sweet pepper bush, 
and is a valuable honey-secreting plant, largely confined to a belt 
paralleling the eastern coast, where it thrives in profusion. The 
aroma, a sweet smell, powerful and penetrating, may be perceived a 
long distance from the bush. Bees work upon it freely, and unques- 
tionably produce considerable surplus honey, which is of good body 
and light color. 
These, so far as bee keepers' observations afford, are the most 
prominent honey plants. Of the remaining list — each reported from 
one to fifteen times — milkweed, wild cherry, knotweed, dandelion, 
strawberry, chestnut, mints, gill-over-the-ground, and mustard are of 
most importance. No one of these taken alone is a source of surplus 
honey in Massachusetts, but all are important in the total yield. The 
writer has observed, in the spring when fruit trees are in bloom, a 
perceptible effect of dandelion nectar upon the delicate flavor of 
fruit-bloom honey, producing the characteristic bitterish taste. 
Milkweed. — Where milkweed occurs in large quantities it is a val- 
uable honey plant. In Berkshire County, Mr. Dewey, of Great Bar- 
rington, reports that milkweed is an important source of nectar. 
One bee keeper in Hampshire County reports the Tartarian honey- 
suckle as important and very productive. Sunflowers are valuable 
but must occur in considerable numbers to make a perceptible differ- 
ence in the crop. 
Most of these plants are quite as important, so far as the economy 
of the bee is concerned, for their pollen as for their nectar. For 
instance, the willow and skunk cabbage, while they are reported as 
honey plants, are far more important as pollen yielders, because at 
their season of bloom pollen is scarce. The chestnut and, to a certain 
extent, the dandelion are more valuable for the pollen which they 
yield than for the honey. 
THE MORE IMPORTANT HONEY PLANTS IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
Table V. — List of the more important honey plants in Massachusetts. 
[Arranged according to frequency of report.] 
Name. 
Clovers: 
White ( Trifolium repens) 
Alsike ( T. hybridum) 
Red ( T. pratense) 
Crimson ( T. incarnatum) 
Sweet (Melilotus alba and 31. officinalis). 
Yellow ( T. agrariu m) 
Golden-rods (Solidago spp. 
Asters (Aster spp. ) 
Times 
reported. 
626 
677 
330 
99 
429 
