BEE KEEPING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 95 
Wild clematis, July 25 to September 1. Cultivated variety (Clematis paniculata) 
blooms early in September, but I doubt if it secretes honey; it is sparingly 
visited for pollen. 
Thoroughwort, ceases about 1st of September. 
About the 1st of April we get soft maple, willow, skunk cabbage, alder and 
some elms, and cultivated plants, such as crocuses, etc., which, I suspect, 
supply more pollen than nectar. 
CAPE COD REGION. a 
(Furnished by Mr. Allen Latham, Norwich, Conn. 6 ) 
Dandelion, in May. 
Huckleberry, in late May. 
Blackberry, in late May. 
White clover, in June and July. 
Common locust (iu Truro), June. 
Sumac (Rims copallina) (occasionally), in July. 
YYbite alder (Clethra alnifolia), July to August. 
Fireweed (Erechtites It icraci folia), August to September. 
Cut-leafed water hoarhound (Lycopus amerlcanus) , August to September. 
Burr-marigold, August to September. 
Pink knotweed, August to September. 
Various golden-rods, August to September, especially Solidago sempervirens, a 
gigantic variety of golden-rod which thrives in the sand along the beach. 
Various asters, like those which are common all over New England, September 
to October. 
Cranberry, flourishes and blooms for a long period. This may yield nectar. 
Strawberry, grows wild by the acre and the children and women carry bushels 
upon bushels of these berries home every June. Possibly in that region this 
plant yields nectar. 
The beach plum is an old settler and is found all about the Cape whitening all 
the beach and dunes with its blooms in May. Whether the bees get any honey 
from that bloom I do not know. 
Wild cherry, both the black or " rum " and the " choke," grow in abundance. 
As these yield practically nothing inland, I judge they furnish the bees no 
nectar there. 
Listed in the order of their importance to the bee keeper : 
1. Huckleberry. — Without this one could not be sure of a crop of honey 
often er than every other year, and possibly not one year in three. 
2-3. Hoarhound and fireweed. — Probably the hoarhound should rank ahead of 
fireweed. 
4. Fall flowers, golden-rod and asters especially. 
The fall flowers will always furnish a crop if the weather permits the bees 
to gather it, but too often the weather is foggy or high winds blow, or else it is 
a A good account of bee keeping in this region is found in the following 
paper: Miller, Arthur C. 100G. A Unique System. How an Ingenious School 
Teacher Harvests Crops of Honey from a Desert. American Bee Keeper, 
Vol. XVI, pp. 206-210, October. Illustrated. 
b Mr. Latham specifies that the data relate to the "plants known to yield 
honey near Provincetown," the extreme end of Cape Cod, about 50 miles direct 
by sea from Boston and 25 miles from Plymouth. 
c It is possible that blackberry is very important. I do not know its honey, 
and the flavor may be lost in the honey from huckleberry bloom. 
