34 
SAGE 
12 or 18 inches tall, and dies in two or 
three weeks after it begins to bloom. Un¬ 
der favorable conditions it yields a moder¬ 
ately large amount of honey. Nearly a 
super per colony has been obtained. The 
honey is rather dark colored but the flavor 
is good. Cleome fills in the gap between 
fruit bloom and alfalfa. 
ROYAL JELLY. — See Queens; also 
Queen-rearing. 
SAGE (Salvia). — Sage honey, which is 
widely known for its delicious flavor in 
Europe as well as in America, is a product 
peculiar to California. The crops of hon¬ 
ey secured from black sage during the past 
25 years have’been so immense that fine 
sage honey is now offered for sale in many 
of the principal cities of the world. During 
the past 40 years there have been two or 
three exceptionally heavy flows when 200 
pounds per colony were secured. At Ven¬ 
tura Mendleson has obtained an average of 
300 pounds per colony in a single season 
from the black and purple sages. While 
the black sage occurs to a limited extent on 
Mt. Diablo near San Francisco and in lo¬ 
calities in San Mateo County, practically 
the entire sage region of this State is re¬ 
stricted to the Coast Ranges, extending 
from the foothills in the northern part of 
San Benito and Monterey Counties to San 
Diego County in the southwest corner. The 
largest amount of sage honey comes from 
Ventura and San Diego Counties, while a 
somewhat less surplus relatively is secured 
in Riverside and San Bernardino Counties. 
The sages belong to the genus Salvia (from 
the Latin salveo, to save, from the sup¬ 
posed medicinal value of some of the spe¬ 
cies), and to the mint family or Labiatae. 
This is a large genus comprising nearly 
500 species widely distributed in both tem¬ 
perate and tropical regions. 
The three species most valuable as honey 
plants in California are black sage, white 
sage, and purple sage. Black sage is so 
called because the foliage is a very dark 
green, and also because the flowers after 
blooming turn black and adhere to the bush 
until the next season. Purple sage has pur- 
A stem of California black sage with blossoms. 
pie blossoms and the foliage has a grayish- 
purple appearance on the hillsides. When 
the two shrubs are seen side by side in the 
distance on the foothills, the contrast is 
very marked, the one looking dark or black 
