Locusts and Wild Honey | Page 2

would be
something to put one's tongue to. Or that from the blossoms of the
apple, the peach, the cherry, the quince, the currant,--one would like a
card of each of these varieties to note their peculiar qualities. The
apple-blossom is very important to the bees. A single swarm has been
known to gain twenty pounds in weight during its continuance. Bees
love the ripened fruit, too, and in August and September will such
themselves tipsy upon varieties such as the sops-of-wine.
The interval between the blooming of the fruit-trees and that of the
clover and the raspberry is bridged over in many localities by the honey
locust. What a delightful summer murmur these trees send forth at this
season! I know nothing about the quality of the honey, but it ought to
keep well. But when the red raspberry blooms, the fountains of plenty
are unsealed indeed; what a commotion about the hives then, especially
in localities where it is extensively cultivated, as in places along the
Hudson! The delicate white clover, which begins to bloom about the
same time, is neglected; even honey itself is passed by for this modest,
colorless, all but odorless flower. A field of these berries in June sends
forth a continuous murmur like that of an enormous hive. The honey is
not so white as that obtained from clover, but it is easier gathered; it is
in shallow cups, while that of the clover is in deep tubes. The bees are
up and at it before sunrise, and it takes a brisk shower to drive them in.
But the clover blooms later and blooms everywhere, and is the staple
source of supply of the finest quality of honey. The red clover yields up
its stores only to the longer proboscis of the bumblebee, else the bee
pasturage of our agricultural districts would be unequaled. I do not
know from what the famous honey of Chamouni in the Alps is made,
but it can hardly surpass our best products. The snow-white honey of
Anatolia in Asiatic Turkey, which is regularly sent to Constantinople
for the use of the grand seignior and the ladies of his seraglio, is
obtained from the cotton plant, which makes me think that the white
clover does not flourish there. The white clover is indigenous with us;
its seeds seem latent in the ground, and the application of certain
stimulants to the soil, such as wood ashes, causes them to germinate
and spring up.

The rose, with all its beauty and perfume, yields no honey to the bee,
unless the wild species be sought by the bumblebee.
Among the humbler plants let me not forget the dandelion that so early
dots the sunny slopes, and upon which the bee languidly grazes,
wallowing to his knees in the golden but not over-succulent pasturage.
From the blooming rye and wheat the bee gathers pollen, also from the
obscure blossoms of Indian corn. Among weeds, catnip is the great
favorite. It lasts nearly the whole season and yields richly. It could no
doubt be profitably cultivated in some localities, and catnip honey
would be a novelty in the market. It would probably partake of the
aromatic properties of the plant from which it was derived.
Among your stores of honey gathered before midsummer you may
chance upon a card, or mayhap only a square inch or two of comb, in
which the liquid is as transparent as water, of a delicious quality, with a
slight flavor of mint. This is the product of the linden or basswood, of
all the trees in our forest the one most beloved by the bees. Melissa, the
goddess of honey, has placed her seal upon this tree. The wild swarms
in the woods frequently reap a choice harvest from it. I have seen a
mountain-side thickly studded with it, its straight, tall, smooth, light
gray shaft carrying its deep green crown far aloft, like the tulip-tree or
the maple.
In some of the Northwestern States there are large forests of it, and the
amount of honey reported stored by strong swarms in this section
during the time the tree is in bloom is quite incredible. As a shade and
ornamental tree the linden is fully equal to the maple, and, if it were as
extensively planted and cared for, our supplies of virgin honey would
be greatly increased. The famous honey of Lithuania in Russia is the
product of the linden.
It is a homely old stanza current among bee folk that
"A swarm of bees in May Is worth a load of hay; A swarm of bees in
June Is worth a silver spoon; But a swarm in July Is not worth a fly."
A swarm in May is indeed a treasure; it is, like an April