RASPBERRY 
718 
ed as to be of little value as honey produc¬ 
ers. 
It is upon tracts from which the hard¬ 
wood lumber has been cut that the wild 
red raspberry offers as reliable a bee pas¬ 
turage as is to be found anywhere. So 
luxuriant is the growth that it is possible, 
in riding along a woodroad, to pick the 
luscious ripe berries from the tall bushes 
bending with the fruit. If the land is not 
burned over, the rich loam, mulched with 
brush, produces large thrifty bushes which 
yield great crops of honey for several 
years. A hive on scales showed in fair 
Raspberry. 
weather a daily gain of 6 to 13 pounds. 
But the rapidly growing young trees soon 
smother the bushes, and the beekeeper is 
forced to seek a new location. If, how¬ 
ever, the land is occasionally burned over, 
the average annual surplus is less, but the 
bee pasturage lasts much longer. Thus the 
raspberry district is constantly changing, 
and this' shrub is not a permanent source 
of nectar in one locality like white clover. 
As new areas are lumbered off “new pas¬ 
tures are offered to new comers.” There is 
only one way, according to Hutchinson, to 
find a desirable location and that is to hunt 
for it.” 
Wild raspberry honey is described by 
Hutchinson, who produced it in large 
quantities, as having a delicious raspberry 
flavor, and, while not as white as white 
clover honey, it is still classed as a white 
honey. In a warm season it begins to 
bloom about the first of June, but if the 
spring is cold and backward the flow does 
not start until the middle of June. “I 
think that I can safely say,” wrote Hutch¬ 
inson, “that the wild raspberry never fails 
to produce nectar. It does not winter-kill 
as does clover, and nectar secretion is less 
affected by the weather. I have seen bees 
doing well working upon it, when the 
weather was so cool that clover would not 
yield a drop of nectar.” A luxuriant 
growth of bushes yields more nectar than 
a stunted one. The bloom lasts fully as 
long as that of white clover, and bees have 
been seen gathering nectar from it during 
the latter part of July. If there is a 
drought in August, followed by rains and 
warm weather in September, it sometimes 
blossoms again and furnishes a second 
crop of honey. The blossoms are inverted, 
a provision for protecting the nectar from 
rain. 
A long-settled country is of no value for 
wild raspberries, since the land is so highly 
cultivated that there will be no berrybushes 
except along the fences and the edges of 
the clearings. Support for several hundred 
colonies can be found only where the hard 
timber has recently been lumbered and 
the land has not been sold for farms. The 
lumbered regions on which the wild rasp¬ 
berry is abundant are isolated and remote 
from the settlements. The only buildings 
available are log shanties and deserted lum¬ 
ber camps. The beeman who goes to north¬ 
ern Michigan must expect, to “rough it,” 
and live in a shanty. The severity of the 
winters and the danger from forest fires 
are also objections. The time will eventual¬ 
ly come when this country will be cleared 
and cultivated, as is the case in the southern 
portion of the State, but this will be many 
years hence. But probably no location is 
so inaccessible at present that the beekeeper 
can not get his crop to market. The wild- 
