Chapter M (5)

“Again, my bees have to fly two to ten miles to get this nectar, as
I am on the southern edge of the teasel belt. According to those who
believe bees fly only 1¹⁄₂ to 2 miles for honey, I should not get
anything from teasel. I have repeatedly seen my bees flying to and
from the teasel fields from our church door, which is 2¹⁄₂ miles from
my apiary in line with the fields.

“As to what proportion of my honey has come from teasel the past
fifteen years, I should say about one-tenth; some years more and some
years not a single pound. In 1877 I got the largest crop, while from
1878 to 1884 little if any was obtained.”

TENDRIL-BEARING SMARTWEED, see Brunnichia.

TENNESSEE--Honey Flora of.

From a special circular sent to the largest beekeepers of the State, asking them to give the names of the chief nectar-producing flowers of their section, the following was gained. The list given below is arranged in order of importance in the estimation of these practical beekeepers:

White clover.
Poplar.
Linden or basswood.
Sourwood.
Aster.
Black locust.
Chestnut.
Goldenrod.
Stickweed.
Red Clover.
Persimmon.
Alsike clover.
Cowpeas.
Tanglefoot (aster).
Sumac.
Maple.
Black gum.
Alfalfa.
Melilotus.
Cotton.
Corn.
Wireweed.
Boneset.
Buckbrush.
Huckleberry.
Whortleberry.
Elm.
Yellow-wood.
Daisy fleabane.
Heartsease.
Cane.
Crowfoot moss.
Willows.
Bitterweed.
Turnip.
Dandelion.
Strawberry.
Pea wood.
Cottonwood.
Cedar.
Blackberry.
Catnip.
Fruit berries.
Aspen.
Raspberry.
Oak.
Spanish needle.

--G. M. Bentley, Tennessee Board of Entomology, Bulletin No. 9.

TEUCRIUM, see Germander.

TEXAN EBONY (Siderocarpos flexicaulis).

Texan ebony is a beautiful shrub or small tree common to the Rio Grande Valley in Texas and abundant in northern Mexico. In the vicinity of Brownsville it is regarded as a valuable source of nectar, blooming two or three times during the year. The tree only blooms two or three days, so the flow is short, usually not exceeding a week, as the difference in blooming time between different trees is not great. The honey is of fine quality and light in color. In some localities beekeepers report that the flow only lasts about two days, but is heavy for this short period. Rains bring it into bloom, and in seasons when rains are frequent, it blooms several times.

TEXAS--Honey Sources of.

Texas is a very large State, with a great diversity of soil and climatic conditions. In order to appreciate its vast extent, one needs to study the map and note something of the variety of climate represented within her borders. Orange, Texas, is very nearly south of Des Moines, Iowa, while El Paso is further west than Denver, Colorado. The northern line is near to southern Kansas, while Brownsville is a long distance south of San Diego, California. One might describe almost any condition of soil and climate with which he is familiar in any part of the United States and say with truth that it is like Texas, for almost every condition of soil or climate of the rest of the country is to be found somewhere in Texas. The climate ranges from a winter temperature of 20 degrees below zero in the Panhandle, to an almost frostless condition in the Lower Rio Grande Valley. In east Texas there is a heavy rainfall, with a consequent luxuriant vegetation, while in parts of west Texas one finds a desert flora and little rain. At one point which the author once visited he was told there had been no rain for eighteen months and the very dry and dead condition of everything, even the cactus, indicated that it was true.

Texas seems to be divided into about five natural beekeeping divisions. Each of these has a flora and conditions peculiar to itself, though, of course, there is a gradual merging of these natural divisions. The lower Rio Grande Valley is the southernmost section of the United States, except the extreme tip of Florida. Here we find conditions unlike any other part of Texas. There is a great variety of honey plants, with a light flow almost continuously, but no heavy honey flows. This condition favors the continuous breeding of bees and the consumption of the honey gathered in brood rearing. It is the most favorable situation in America for the rearing of queens and bees, but a poor place for honey production, since the average surplus per colony seldom exceeds twenty-five pounds.

In this section bees swarm as late as December and gather sufficient nectar to carry them through the brief period when vegetation is dormant. The huisache and catsclaw bloom in February and March. Hackberry also begins to yield in February. From February till December there are but short periods without some nectar coming from the field. Brazilwood, horsemint, Texan ebony, blackbrush, privet, coma, mesquite, whitebrush, and many others, yield light flows of nectar.

The Arid Region

The escarpment running east and west between San Antonio and New Braunfels marks a very definite boundary to the belt where cotton is the principal source of surplus honey. South of the escarpment and extending to the valley of the Rio Grande, we have the mesquite region. A line drawn in a southeasterly direction from San Antonio, through Cuera and Victoria to the Gulf, would mark the approximate eastern boundary of this region. Figure 136 shows a characteristic group of honey plants of southwest Texas. Agarita (barberry), mesquite, hackberry, Mexican persimmon, brazilwood, anaqua, prickly pear and huisache, all valuable plants to the beekeeper, are growing together. There are very characteristic plants for this region. Most of the honey comes from thorny shrubs, including catsclaw, huajillo (pronounced wa-he-ya), etc. This belt extends westward for a long distance and includes the famous Uvalde County, from which hundreds of cars of fine honey from catsclaw and huajillo have been shipped.

The Cotton Region.

North of the escarpment already mentioned we find the cotton belt extending north to Oklahoma and including the black, waxy lands and other heavy soils. Figure 46, in connection with the article on cotton, shows an outline map roughly indicating the different honey regions of the State. Within this particular area, we find the highest development of agriculture in Texas. The soil is rich and the climate mild. Cotton, corn, alfalfa, small grains and truck crops are all profitably grown. Mesquite is an important source of nectar in the cotton belt, as is also horsemint, and in the northern portion, sweet clover. Broomweed is also important, some seasons.

East Texas.

In the timbered regions of east Texas there is some splendid beekeeping territory unoccupied. There is a variety of flora to be equalled in few sections, and remarkable yields of honey are reported. On heavy soils cotton yields freely. Basswood, rattan, huckleberry, partridge pea, horsemint, bitterweed and cowpeas are all reported as sources of surplus honey in this section. Beekeepers of extensive experience report that one can depend upon an average of more than one hundred pounds per colony per year for a ten-year period.

Although the average yield is much higher and the flows are much more dependable than in other parts of Texas, the business of beekeeping is less highly specialized here than in other parts of the State. This is probably due to the fact that general agriculture is profitable and public attention has not been called to the possibilities of this section.

THIMBLEBERRY, see Raspberry; also Salmon Berry.

THORN APPLE, see Hawthorne.

THOROUGHWORT, see Boneset.

THYME (Thymus).

Thyme is an introduced plant from Europe which is sometimes cultivated in gardens and occurs occasionally as an escape. There are two species listed in this country: =Thymus vulgaris=, the source of the famed honey from Mt. Hymettus, and =Thymus serphyllum=, the wild or creeping thyme.

According to J. E. Crane, thyme is found in southwestern Vermont in sufficient abundance to make excellent pasture for the bees during August. There is an occasional report from some beekeeper who finds the bees much attracted to the plant, but as yet no reports of surplus honey worthy of mention have been received.

TIEVINE, see Morning Glory.

TISSWOOD, see Red Bay.

TI-TI.

The leatherwood or black ti-ti (=Cyrilla racemiflora=) is a shrub with shining leaves and large numbers of small flowers in clusters. It occurs in swamps from southern Virginia to Florida and west to Louisiana and Texas. In Alabama and Mississippi it occurs from the Central Pine Belt to the Coast Plain, in the edges of swamps and along streams. It is also known as white ti-ti, ironwood and red ti-ti. It sometimes reaches the height of 20 to 30 feet, becoming a small tree, though usually it is found as a shrub. The thin bark breaks up into large scales.

The bloom opens in June and July and is not regarded as a very dependable source of nectar. The honey is dark, with a mild flavor.

The ti-ti (=Cliftonia monophylla=), sometimes called buckwheat-tree or ironwood, also known as black ti-ti, occurs in wet, sandy soil and swamps from South Carolina to Florida and west to Louisiana. It is an attractive tree, often reaching a height of 30 to 40 feet. This shrub or tree, as the case may be, often grows in dense thickets called ti-ti swamps. The flowers are white and fragrant and appear in late February to April. There are large areas of ti-ti swamp in Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi, which furnish abundant bee pasture. According to Baldwin, it yields surplus honey in the extreme northwest portion of west Florida. He describes the honey as red, strong, and suitable mostly for baking purposes. (Gleanings, March 15, 1911.)

Ti-ti is of more or less value as a source of nectar in the swampy districts of all the Southeastern States from South Carolina to Louisiana. The honey is not of the best quality, nor is the yield generally heavy.

TOBACCO (Nicotiana tabacum).

The tobacco plant is a coarse annual. It is grown as a field crop in the South and also in a few northern localities, especially in Wisconsin and Connecticut. As a honey plant it is probably seldom important. The fact that the plants are usually cut in advance of the time when the bloom is at its best, would make it unavailable, for the most part, as a source of nectar.

“We are in a location where hundreds of acres of tobacco are raised
every year. I have taken bees and placed them near the fields and
they will store some honey from the plant some years. It is very
dark, much like buckwheat in color, strong and very heavy body.
Buckwheat is not my favorite honey, but I can eat it. Tobacco honey I
cannot. It is very slow to granulate, and I have never seen it harden
as other honey will, even when well ripened and two years old.”--W.
K. Rockwell, Bloomfield, Conn. American Bee Journal, page 63, 1919.

“Tobacco yields a heavy flow under certain conditions in Porto
Rico.”--Henry Brenner, in American Bee Journal, page 381, 1916.

“Tobacco in this section has always been raised in the open field
and, when about 4 feet high, each plant has been ‘topped’ and not
allowed to go to seed. * * * It is now being picked in the field
instead of being cut by the old method. The plant is allowed to grow
from 7 to 10 feet high and goes to seed. The leaves are saved by
picking, this work commencing at the bottom, one row of leaves being
gathered at a time, and the top leaves picked last. The plants are
thus allowed to blossom, each one bearing hundreds of flowers, and
they continue to bloom from August 1 till frost. Thus we have thrown
open to our bees hundreds of acres of tobacco, containing myriads of
flowers. The bees swarm on it, some days more than others, and the
honey comes in as fast as during the earlier flows.”--E. H. Shattuck,
Granby, Conn. Gleanings, page 268, 1911.

TOLLON BERRY, see Christmas Berry.

TOOTHACHE-TREE, see Prickly Ash.

TOY-ON BERRY, see Christmas Berry.

TRAILING ARBUTUS, see Arbutus.

TREE HUCKLEBERRY, see Farkle-Berry.

TREE OF HEAVEN, see Varnish Tree.

TREE CLOVER, TREE ALFALFA or TAGASASTE (Cytisus proliferus alba).

The tree alfalfa, or white broom, is grown to some extent in California. In Australia it is regarded as important, as the following extract from Rayment (Money in Bees in Australasia), will show:

“This rapid-growing hedge plant is now widely known as a grand honey
yielder. As a wind break for the apiary it is unrivaled. The white
blossoms burst the sheaves early in spring, almost before the winter
has departed. Bees work upon it during a shower, as the drooping
habit of the flowers prevents the nectar washing out with the rain.
The pollen is cadmium in color and the honey very pale and clear,
rather thin and of mild flavor. To make a close hedge it should be
severely cut back. Unfortunately, the sheep and cattle, also the
kangaroos are fond of it and keep it eaten back.”

It is native to the Canary Islands and adjacent regions. As it thrives in California, it is promising for trial in the warmer parts of America.

TRILLIUM.

One of the first spring flowers, the trillium, of which there are several species, is attractive to the bees. It is commonly known by the name of wake robin, or birthroot. As it blooms so early, it is seldom that the bees find many good days for flying, and such early spring flowers can never be regarded as important except for the purpose of stimulating brood rearing.

TROPICAL LILAC (Duranta plumiere). GOLDEN DEWDROP.

The tropical lilac is a hedge plant cultivated in Florida and California and other southern localities. W. K. Morrison lists it in Gleanings (Aug. 1, 1905), as extremely attractive to the bees and as blooming for some time. Probably not sufficiently abundant in America to be important anywhere.

TRUMPET WEED, see Boneset.

TULIP-POPLAR or TULIP TREE (Liriodendron tulipifera).

The tulip-tree, also known as yellow poplar, is a very large tree, often growing to a height of 100 to 140 feet, and a diameter of 6 to 9 feet. It is found from southern New England west to southern Michigan and south to the Gulf States, east of the Mississippi. It is also found to a limited extent in southeastern Missouri and eastern Arkansas. It blooms in April and May and produces a light amber honey of good flavor.

According to Buchanan, the honey yield from this source is heavy and the tree is an important addition to the nectar-secreting flora of Tennessee and nearby States. The showy flowers are shown at Figure 137.

The possibilities of this source of nectar are not properly appreciated. Since it blooms so early in spring, few colonies of bees are sufficiently strong to gather the crop possible from tulip-poplar. The skilled beekeeper, who can bring his colonies through the winter in good condition, gets large yields of honey from this source. In the vicinity of Washington, D. C., it is the principal source of surplus, and strong colonies often store an average of 100 pounds. In many cases the bees build up on tulip-poplar only to become strong after the flow is over. In locations where this tree is common, too much care cannot be taken to get strong colonies early in spring to take advantage of this flow.

TUPELO-GUM (Nyssa).

There are four species of the tupelo-gum trees, which should not be confused with the gums of the Pacific Coast, which are eucalyptus (See Eucalyptus). The tupelo-gum, or cotton-gum (=Nyssa aquatica=) (Fig. 138), is a very large tree common to the swamps from southeastern Missouri and southern Illinois east to Virginia and south to Florida and Texas. It grows to a height of more than 100 feet and yields enormous quantities of nectar.

The pepperidge, or highland black-gum (=Nyssa sylvatica=) sometimes called sour-gum, yellow-gum, tupelo, or stinkwood, grows in moist upland woods from Ontario and New England to Michigan and south to Florida and Texas. It reaches a height of 150 feet and a diameter of four feet, under favorable conditions.

The water-gum, or Southern black-gum (=Nyssa biflora=), also called water tupelo, has a swollen base and, when growing in the water, produces erect roots which rise to the surface. It is found from North Carolina to Florida and west to eastern Texas. It is sometimes regarded as a variety of the pepperidge or black-gum.

The ogeche plum or wild lime-tree (=Nyssa Ogeche=), called white tupelo, is much smaller than the other gum-trees, growing to a height of forty to sixty feet. It is common to the swamps of Georgia, Florida and South Carolina.

The first named species is very common in the swamps of Alabama and Florida, where it often grows with the bald cypress on the banks of the Alabama, Tombigbee and Appalachicola Rivers. A. B. Marchant averaged 82 pounds of surplus honey per colony from tupelo for a seventeen-year period on the Appalachicola River in Florida. During part of this time he kept as many as 500 colonies to the yard. In 1904, he took 250 thirty-gallon barrels from 750 colonies, an average of about 120 pounds per colony.

The tupelos are the source of much honey in Arkansas, east Texas and other Southern States, as well as in Alabama and Florida. Beekeepers complain that in many of the best tupelo locations there is a shortage of summer pollen, so that it becomes necessary to move the bees away when the tupelo flow is over.

The tupelo honey is of good quality, and, when unmixed, will not granulate. Bottlers like to use tupelo honey for blending with other grades to retard granulation. It is of good body and mild flavor, and finds a ready sale at better prices than most southern honey brings.

TURKEY MULLEIN (Eremocarpus setigerus).

The turkey mullein is also known as coyote weed, wooly white drought weed, and yerba del pescado. The latter, according to Jepson, is the Spanish-Californian name, derived from the custom of the Indians to use the heavy-scented herbage of this plant to stupefy fish in small streams, to catch them by hand. He gives the range as dry open areas from the plains or the Sacramento and San Joaquin, Sierra Nevada foothills to the low hills and valley fields of the Coast Ranges. It grows mostly in stubble fields following the grain harvests, contesting for survival with the blue curls.

From Western Honeybee we quote as follows:

“Turkey mullein is a different appearing plant (from blue curls), but
grows under exactly similar conditions. Its insignificant pale green
or white flowers yield a thick amber honey, of biting, astringent
flavor, often in considerable quantities.

“I have known a beekeeper in San Diego County to market eight tons of
this honey. It is fit only for manufacturing purposes. The foliage of
turkey mullein is white, wooly, and exhales a pungent odor.” October,
1914.

TURNIP (Brassica).

Where turnips are grown for seed in large acreage, surplus honey may be expected from this source. The late J. S. Harbison said of them:

“Turnip blossoms are eagerly sought by the bees, and afford so rich
pasturage during March and April as to make it a profitable crop, if
but for this purpose alone.”--Beekeeper’s Directory.

TURPENTINE WEED, see Blue Curls.

U

ULEX, see Gorse.

UMBRELLA TREE, see Wild China.

UTAH--Honey Sources of.

Most of the surplus honey which goes to market from Utah is from sweet clover and alfalfa. Salmon-berry, clover, dandelion, willows and the desert flowers add something to the output of the apiary.