588 
MAPLE 
Live apart, super by super, place the escape 
on the brood-nest or on a super partly 
filled, then one by one put back the supers. 
If no honey is coming in, this will prob¬ 
ably mean that robbers will get started. 
There is no need of removing any super, 
nor a cover, for that matter. All that is 
necessary is to apply the principles illus¬ 
trated in Pigs. 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11. See 
also illustration under Comb Honey, to 
Produce, showing how to put on an escape- 
board. 
MANCHINEEL (Hippomane Mancin- 
ella). —An evergreen tree with smooth 
leaves resembling a pear tree, growing on 
sandy beaches in southeast Florida, on the 
Keys, in the West Indies, and tropical 
America. It has an acid milky juice, which 
is very poisonous and was used by the 
Caribs to poison their arrows. “Probably 
the most poisonous member of our arbores¬ 
cent flora. The juice and the smoke from 
the burning wood are very injurious to the 
eyes.” The yellow green flowers are very 
small and open from February to April; 
in certain years they are reported to yield 
nectar heavily. 
MANZANITA (Arctostaphylos manzan¬ 
ita ).—Manzanita is an evergreen shrub, 10 
to 15 feet tall, with wide-spreading crooked 
branches. Associated with scrub oak, cha- 
mise, and other spiny bushes it forms 
dense thickets, called chaparral, a charac¬ 
teristic feature of Californian scenery on 
the Coast Ranges and the Sierra Nevada. 
The flowers appear from November to 
March, often opening about Christmas 
time. Ordinary freezing nights do not .af¬ 
fect the bloom. It secretes nectar so free¬ 
ly that the hives are often filled with man¬ 
zanita honey. This early flow starts brood¬ 
rearing, but as there are no other nectar- 
yielding flowers at this season and the 
weather is often cold, the honey is speedily 
consumed by the bees. The honey is amber- 
colored Avith a fine flavor and the fragrance 
of the bloom. 
MAPLE (Ace?*)-—The maples bloom so 
early in the season that their value as honey 
plants is usually greatly underestimated. 
In early spring the colonies are so weak 
that a surplus from this source is seldom 
obtained, and the maples are regarded as 
important only for brood-rearing. There 
are about 100 species in the genus Acer , 
which are confined chiefly to the northern 
hemisphere. Many of the trees are very 
common and the rock maple forms exten¬ 
sive forests. In the States east of the 
Rocky Mountains a small surplus of maple 
honey has been reported in Iowa and Ala¬ 
bama. 
The red maple ( Acer rubrurn) is a Avell- 
known tree in the eastern United States 
extending from Canada to Georgia and 
westward to Missouri. The scarlet flowers 
appear in early spring before the leaves, 
and yield large quantities of pollen and 
considerable nectar; but the weather is 
often so cold and stormy that it prevents 
the bees from flying freely. In New Eng¬ 
land and in the region of the Great Lakes 
the forest in many sections is almost ex¬ 
clusively made up of the rock or sugar 
maple (A. saccharum). The trees are 
completely covered with yellowish green, 
pendulous flowers, which are attractive to 
great numbers of honeybees. Their con¬ 
tented hum is audible at a long distance. 
Strong colonies in many localities should 
store a surplus from this source. The flow¬ 
ers of the silver maple (A. saccharinum ) 
appear in earliest spring in advance of the 
leaves. As in red maple the stamens and 
pistils are in different flowers and usually 
on different trees. It is widely distributed 
thruout the eastern States. The box elder 
or ash-leaved maple (A. Negundo ) grows 
from Manitoba to Texas, but is not found 
near the coast. The small green flowers 
appear before the leaves and are a valuable 
source of nectar. 
In Washington and Oregon broadleaf or 
Oregon maple (A. macrophyllum ) is an 
important spring honey and pollen plant 
blooming in April and May. It is found 
mainly west of the Cascades, below an 
elevation of 3,500 feet. Vine maple (A. 
circinatum) is a much more important hon¬ 
ey plant than broadleaf maple. It grows 
below an altitude of 5,000 feet mainly west 
of the Cascades, and blooms a little later 
than the preceding species. The honey has 
a fine flavor and is amber-colored with a 
faint pinkish tinge. In both the Oregon 
trees the floAvers appear a little after the 
leaves. 
