BEE-spoke-data/bees-v0 huggingface dataset:
According to Richter, wild onions sometimes yield surplus honey in the vicinity of Sacramento, California. In some parts of that State, where cultivated onions **(Allium cepa)** are grown for seed, they are also important. The onion yields freely and the honey is said to be amber in color with a characteristic onion flavor which disappears after the honey i- fully ripened. There are few localities where onions are sufficiently abundant to be important.
**ONTARIO--Honey Sources of.**
The principal honey plants of Ontario, in the order of their importance, are alsike and white Dutch clover, buckwheat, basswood, fireweed, wild raspberry, goldenrod, aster, dandelion, sweet clover, viper's bugloss, Canada thistle, milkweed and boneset.
Buckwheat, basswood, sweet clover, viper's bugloss, milkweed and boneset are confined principally to the southern part of the province. Willows and maples are important for early spring brood rearing.--F. W. L. Sladen.
**OPUNTIA, see Pickly Pear.**
**ORANGE (Cittrus aurantium).**
The orange tree is a native of Asia, early introduced by the colonists into Florida. It thrives in a semi-tropical climate and its culture in America is confined to southern Florida, a few small areas along the Gulf Coast, the lower Rio Grande Valley in Texas and to California. It is sensitive to frost and the trees are easily killed by freezing.
In California, orange is one of the important sources of honey. The trees bloom in April, when many colonies are too weak to make the most of the crop. The flow is extremely rapid, as at times the nectar is secreted in such abundance that men and horses working in the orchards are saturated with it. The flow lasts about three weeks. In 1919 it continued 23 days in Tulare County. Four hundred colonies in one yard averaged more than 60 pounds per colony from orange. O. F. Darnell, of Porterville, extracted 171 pounds of orange honey from one colony in ten days, after having previously extracted 24 frames which were not weighed. A W. Gambs, of Anderson, reported that some colonies, made extra strong by drifting bees, stored four full-depth extracting supers of fresh nectar from orange in four days.
In some of the interior valley locations the bees get fair crops from orange about four years in five. Along the coast, the fogs are unfavorable and the crop is uncertain. Good orange locations are much in demand, and many beekeepers move their bees long distances for the flow. With a larger reserve supply of honey, left in the hives for winter to enable the bees to build up early in spring, and with more careful attention to wintering, it would be possible to greatly increase the average returns from orange. This statement is based on the results of a few beekeepers who take special pains to get their bees into condition for the orange flow.
The honey from orange is white in color, heavy in body, of the finest quality, and is much in demand in the markets.
OREGON CRAB APPLE, see Crab Apple.
OREGON-Honey Sources of.J. W. Wills, of Marion County, Oregon, lists the principal honey plants of that State in the American Bee Journal as follows:
Willow, chick weed, balin-of-Gilead, salmonberry, dandelion, fruit trees, grapes, currants, gooseberries, maples, clover, Juneberry, barberry, huckleberries, laurel, milkweed, lobelia, catinp, snowberry, arrowwood, Spanish needle and some others.
P. W. Nicolle, in Gleanings, adds that chitnam (Rhamnus purshiana) is one of the principal sources. He mentions, also, salal (Gaultheria shallon) as a source of nectar. Salal is frequently mentioned as valuable in Oregon.
OREGON GRAPE (Berberis nervosa).Oregon grape is common in the woodlands near the Coast from Marin County, California, northward. It is abundant in the forest regions of Washington. It is a shrub with prickly alternate leaves and yellow flowers in racemes. Oregon grape is reported as a source of honey of minor importance in the Northwest. Like the agarites or triple-leaved barberry of Texas, it blooms in early spring when it is of special value for stimulative purposes. Another species of barberry (Berberia Aquifolium) is common to this region, and most beekeepers do not differentiate between the two species. (See Barberry.)
OREGONYA.A desert plant growing on high, loose, sandy soils. Blooms in May, with a small bur following the bloom. It ranges from Wyoming to Arizona and west Texas. It yields nectar freely and an average of forty pounds per colony has been reported from this source. The honey is light amber, of inferior flavor, according to D. W. Spangler, of Longmont, Colorado, but it is extremely valuable for building up colonies in spring. Extended cultivation is rapidly reducing the area where the plant is to be found.
PALM. Royal palms (Roystonea regia) are very abundant in Cuba and Porto Rico and are probably the most characteristic trees of those islands. They are also to be found to some extent in the southern portions of the United States. As sources of honey these trees are important in the West Indices, where they yield nectar abundantly.
The date palm **(Phoenix dactylifera)** has been planted to a limited extent in the desert regions of the Southwestern United States. This species is repated to be a splendid source of nectar.
The cocounut palm **(Cocos nucifera)** is the most important of all the palm trees, since the nuts furnish large quantities of food, much used in tropical countries. This species is common in the West Indies and in southern Florida. Although the source of considerable honey it is not equal to the foregoing species as a source of nectar. (See also Palmetto).
PALMETTO **(Sabal).**
The palmetto are the most conspicuous feature of the flora of the south half of Florida. (Fig. 104.) The cabbage palmetts is a tree, while the saw or scrub palmetto grows more like the underbrush in northern forests. To the man accustoned to dense forests, the open, park-like growth of the palmetto s hardly seems like woodland. The illustration gives a good idea of the typical Florida landscape.
This group of plants is not important in America, outside of the State c.f Florida. A small area in lower Texas, about the mouth of the Rio Grande River, is covered by a species of palmetto closely resembling the cabbage palmetto, but it is thought to be a different species. An occasional tree is also found along the secoast as far north as Charleston, S, C. They are to be found also as street trees in various southern cities along the Gulf Coast and in south Texas. The small saw palmetto **(Serenosa serrulata)** also extends its range into Georgia and the Carolinas, in open pine woodlands.
In Florida both forms are sufficiently abundant to furnish nectar in quantity worthy the attention of the commercial beckeeper. However, in too many localities there is little else available, so that the season between flows is too long to make beckeeping worth while. To take advantage of the palmetto flows and at the same time get good crops through the rest of the year, the late O. O. Poppleton practiced migratory beckeeping. His apiaries were moved several times during the year, so as to be near different sources in the period of bloom. The great drawback to beckeeping in Florida is the lack of a sufficient variety of honey plants in one loca tion to support the bees profitably throughout the year. There are a few localities, of course, where this does not apply.
The cabbage palmetto **(Sabal palmetto)** (Fig. 102) gets its name from the cabbage-like formation in the bud at the top of the growing trunk. The tree grows 25 to 35 feet in height and has large fan-shaped leaves
Fig. 149: Calbage palmetto in bloom.
several feet long. It grows along the Atlantic Coast to the north line of Florida, but in the interior is not found in abundance more than about two-thirds of the way.
The tree blooms during July and August, the latter date applying to northern parts of the State. The blossoms are very delicate and have been likened by Professor Baldwin to a giant ostrich plume. (Fig. 105).
According to his statement, the flowerlets are sensitive to weather conditions. Too much moisture flights them, while the opposite extreme blasts the delicate bloom. As a consequence, it does not yield abundantly more than about one year in three, although at times it yields very profusely.
"On the St. Lucic River, Mr. Hill extracted, barredel and shipped 3,500 pounds of palmetto honey from 53 colonies in two weeks."--Page 489, American Bee Journal, 1899.
While palmetto honey is regarded as of very high quality, the honey from the cabbage tree is rather thin and requires some care in getting it properly ripened, as the following quotations will show:
"Cabbage palmetto honey, scaled or unscaled, will foam as though fermentation was in progress; that taken from the combs unscaled will ferment enough to deprive it of all the honey flavor, but the sealed only foams. Thin and acid and amber in color, it will flow bublbing from the cells behind the knife, and it is not a rare thing to see gas bubbles under the couplings of the sealed cells. Whether the colonies are strong or weak, it is always the same, when the bees work on the cabbage trees, as the common palm tree of Florida is called. The name
Figure 106: The saw gelmetto in thioum.
comes from the fact that the bud in the head at the top is eaten in lieu of cabbage.
"The saw palmetto is decidedly different in the nectar it yields. Saw palmetto honey, even unscaled, may be called a good honey, and it is, too. When ripened it is a honey that makes a name for itself when enough care is taken by the producer to have it unmixed with other nectars.
"I write from personal experience on the east coast of Florida."= L. K. Smith, Gleanings, page 39, 1909.
The saw palmetto **(Serenoa servulata)**, often called scrab palmetto (Fig. 103), is a low growing little palm, found on dry soils in the Gulf Coast region. In the southern portion of its range, in peninsular Florida, it attains the proportions of a small tree. There it sometimes reaches a height of 20 feet, with erect or inclined trunk. Further north the stem is almost invariably underground. Large areas of pine lands are covered with it.
The blooming time is April and May. O. O. Poppleton wrote concerning his calendar of the year:
"April-Saw palmetto flow commences early in the month and continues until last of May. Our apinary work these two months is extracting, building up all colonies and replacing poor quecns."=Beekeepers' Review, page 11, 1893.
Concerning the honey flow from saw palmetto we quote E. G. Baldwin as follows:
"The honey from saw palmetto is lemon-yellow in color, thick and
Figure 104: The palmetto are a conspicuous feature of the Florida landscape.
Figure 165: Density of the cylinder velocity.
waxy and of pronounced but delicious flavor. It is not quite so transparent as pure orange honey, but seldom candies, and makes a choice table article. Mr. O. O. Poppleton pronounces it the best honey in Florida, with the possible exception of tupelo. It is liked by almost everyone at first taste: is a trifle milder, even, than orange."--Gleanings, page 177, 1911.
Forest fires frequently destroy many square miles of the saw palmetto, thus removing this source of nectar for one year. However, according to Baldwin, the burned-over portions usually produce the most honey the following year.
Concerning the flow from palmetto, E. B. Rood, of Bradentown, writes as follows:
"We have been having the heaviest honey flow from palmetto for ten years. One colony on scales brought in 50 pounds in four days, and 80 pounds in ten days. I expect 20,000 to 30,000 pounds. I have extracted 13,000 pounds now and am just starting on another round."--Gleanings, page 703, 1908.
Figure 106: Partridge pea.
## PARADISE FLOWER, see Acacia.
### Parsnip (Pastinaca sativa).
The cultivated parsing is a valuable honey plant. In the seed belt of California, where it is grown largely for seed, it is important as a source of surplus. Writing in Gleanings (November, 1999) E. R. Root mentions having seen hives five and six stories high, jammed full of honey from parsing and celery. He states that the honey is not of the best, and that honey from parsing is inferior to that gathered from celery.
### PARTRIDGE PEA (Cassia Chamaechrista).
Partridge pea, known also as sensitive pea, is an important source of honey in Georgia and Florida. The flowers, of an attractive yellow color, are about the size shown in Figure 106, which displays blossom, seedgol and leaf. This plant is common along sandy roadsides in the Middle West, and may at times be found for miles at a stretch. It is seldom reported as an important source of surplus honey, except in the South-eastern States. While the bees visit it freely while in bloom in the Northern States, the honey stored from this source is seldom noticeable.
The plant is peculiar in that in addition to the flowers, nectar is secreted by extra floral nectaries at the base of the leaf stalk or petiole. The bloom lasts for several weeks in midsummer. As the bloom comes for the most part after the close of the clover harvest, its chief value in the North is to keep the bees occupied till the later flowers furnish a fall flow. The quality stored from this source is reported as poor in the North.
In contrast, the following report indicates that it is valuable in Georgia and Florida:
"Bees store from one to three supers, during its flow, of light honey. The flow begins in June and lasts until October,"--Wilder in American Bee Journal, page 369, 192.
### PEACH (Prunus persica).
The cultivated peach is an important source of nectar over a wide scope of country. In localities where large peach orchards are found, it is important for building up colonies in spring. Like most of the tree fruits, the blooming period comes early, before the bees are strong enough to profit to the fullest extent from the abundance of nectar.
### PEAR (Pyrus).
The cultivated pear is old-world origin, but now widely distributed in America. Where grown commercially, it is the source of abundant nectar and pollen in early spring. Most varieties of the pear bloom ahead of the apple. Nearly all the tree fruits furnish nectar in abundance and all are valued highly by the beekeeper.
The pear is subject to blight, which destroys thousands of trees every year. For a time the honeybee was accused of spreading the blight by her visits from tree to tree. There is now serious doubt whether it is possibe for the bee to spread this disease. Experiments by Dr. J. H. Merrill, at Kansas Agricultural College, indicate that the aphids are the carriers of the infection.
**PENNSYLVANIA--Honey sources of.**
Pennsylvania is in what is generally known as the white clever region. White and alsike clover are of first importance. Backwheat, in some sections, is also a main source of surplus. In spring, the willows and maples, followed by dandelion and fruit bloom, furnish both nectar and pollen for early brood rearing. In the mountains, azalea and laurel furnish some
Figure 107: Blowsoms of Cletbra, or sweet pepper bush.
honey. Black locust, tulip-poplar and sunmac are valuable in certain localities. Basswood, goldenrod and asters should also be included as of local importance.
## Pennsylvania, see Wild Pennsylvania
The cultivated peonics are introduced from Asia and are commonly grown for ornament. Most varieties are double' and produce no pollen. The single varieties, however, produce pollen in abundance, and at times the bees seek them eagerly. The writer has seen as many as six to eight bees gathering pollen on a single blossom. The opening buds also seem to exude a nectar-like substance sought by ants and bees.
## Pepperbush or White Alder (Clethora alinfolia)
The sweet pepperbush occurs from Maine along the coast to Florida and west to Louisiana. It is a small shrub with white flowers, as shown in Figure 107, which appear in midsummer. In Alabama, Georgia and north Florida, it is common in the coast plain, on swampy banks of streams and in low, wet thickets. It is very fragrant when in bloom and is often used for ornamental planting on lawns and in parks. The honey is thick, white and of fine flavor. In localities where the plant occurs abundantly, in the wild state, it seldom fails to bloom, since it grows in wet places and is unaffected by drought.
Figure 105: Blossoms and fruits of pepper tree.
**PEPPERIDGE, see Tupelo.**
**PEPPER-TREE (Schinus molle).**
The pepper-tree, a native of western South America, has been widely planted in California for ornament and shade. Its bright red berries are a substitute for pepper, hence the name. It is a well-known tree on the Pacific coast, as far north as Martinez, on the Suisun Bay. It is grown in parks, on lawns and along the streets of nearly every Southern California city.
While a small amount of bloom may be seen at almost any time of the year, its principal period is in late summer when there is a scarcity of nectar-secreting blossoms (Fig. 108). The blossoms are rich in nectar and the bees gather some surplus from this source. The honey is amber in color, strong and rather pepper in flavor.
The flowers are small and of a greenish or yellowish color, in large sprays. The berries ripen in November and December.
**PEPPER-VINE, see Snowwine.**
**PERSICARIA, see Heartsease.**
**PERSIMMON (Diospyros).**
The persimmon, or possom-wood **(Diospyros virginiana),** grows from southern New England south and west to Missouri, Arkansas, Florida and along the gulf to Texas. It is a tree of medium size, reaching a height of 50 feet and rarely exceeding 12 inches in diameter. (Fig. 109). The fruit is composed of a rich and palatable pulp and a few large seeds. When green it is very astringent and very disagreeable. The flowers appear in May in the southern part of its range, and later northward. Where abundant, persimmon is a valuable source of nectar. The Mexican persimmon **Diospyros Texana),** called also date plum, is a shrub or tree 10 to 30 feet in height. It thrives best in canyons and ravines, and is common over much of south Texas. It is frequently reported as an important source of early nectar in many parts of Texas.
Franklin Sherman, Jr., lists the persimmon as sixth in importance of the honey sources of North Carolina. He states that it is irregular in yield and lasts but a short time, but does well while it lasts.
**PHACELIA (Phacelia).**
Jepson described thirteen species of phacelia as native to California. Of these Richter lists four as of value to the beekeeper. Hill vervenia **(Phacelia distans)** he lists as common in the plains and foothills, yielding both nectar and pollen. The caterpillar phacelia **(Phacelia hispida)** is listed as common in the chaparral belt, yielding a water-white honey of fine flavor that candies soon after extracting. This is common in Ventura County, and M. H. Mendelson reports that he extracted a carload of honey from this source before the blooming of the sages. **Phacelia ramossisima** is reported as a fair honey plant, but not equal to the others. The valley vervenia, or fiddle neck **(Phacelia tangectifolia)** is listed by Jepson("Flora of Western Middle California") as found in the Sacramento Valley and southward to southern California. It blows in April and furnishes be pasture in about six weeks from seed, and the Bloom lasts about six weeks.
Figure 109: Sermm of hees Imiliding corals in a persimacon tree.
"The nectar flows all day. The honey is amber in color, sometimes light green and of a mild aromatic flavor. Cows fed on it show a marked increase in flow of milk, but will not eat it alone at first."--Harry E. Horne, page 342 of above book.
This species was introduced into Germany and had quite a boom there in the early nineties. Much attention was given it in the German bee magazines and it was endorsed as valuable both for forage and for bee pasture.
Scholl lists **Phacelia congesta** and **Phacelia glaba** as yielding sparingly in Texas. Thos. Wm. Cowan writes as follows, in American Bee Journal, in regard to the growing of phacelia in Europe:
"The one grown in Europe, **Phacelia tanacetifolia,** is literally covered with bees from morning till night. The species was introduced into Europe from California in 1832, and is called tanacetifolia (tansy-leaved) from the resemblance of its leaves to those of tansy. it is an annual with blinski pink flowers, racemes spike-formed, elongated, corynbose; height of plant two feet. It is grown in Europe as a bee plant for its nectar, and is the only one which produces an appreciable quantity of it."--November 20, 1902, page 751.
A bekeeper from Indiana reports that **Phacelia purshii** grows freely in the wheat fields in his locality and that the bees work freely on the blue flowers. He states that in places it grows so abundantly that the wheat takes second place to the phacelia. On the 27th of May, 1919, strong colonies already had full depth extracting supers almost filled. The honey from this source is of good quality.
## Physiology of recent secretion.
What we call individual plants are complex communities of real microscopic individuals, which biologists call cells. These are associated in numerous sub-communities differing from one another in structure and function. Their specialization results in a division of labor and a correspondingly large total efficiency, much as specialization and division of labor lead to efficiency and productive possibilities in a nation consisting of states, and these of smaller communities made up of trades, guilds and professions, which in co-operation follow the manifold activities that characterize a nation and collectively constitute the national life of its individuals, which is far more effective and greater than the individual life of any one person or class.
The active, living part of a cell is its protoplasm--the physical basis cif life, as Husley called it in animals and plants alike. Commonly this protoplasm encloses itself by a wall of cellulose, an organic substance manufactured by the protoplasm. Where two cells are in contact, they are usually flattened against one another. When men first began to use the microscope, only a little over two centuries ago, it was the walls and shapes of cells that attracted attention, and the resemblance to honeycomb on a small scale was so striking that the cavities were naturally called cells.
Protoplasm itself is a very complex substance, chemically, and even the much simpler cell-wall is far from being always really one identical substance. A considerable part of the thickening of matured cell-walls has been laid down on the original partition between two cells, and not only differs from this but is not alike in different kinds of cells, and in structures like wood and cork it is impregnated with other materials that affect the cell-wall very greatly in such respects as hardness and permeability to water.
The shells of nuts, for instance, are so impervious that they are commonly "stratified" by planters so that their hard shells may disintegrate more or less as a preliminary to germination, a process that not infrequently requires more than a year unless hastened by some expedient like that of passing law fruits through the digestive mill of poultry as a means of softening their honey cores, of filing the hard envelope, which is a favorite trick of gardeners with nut-like fruits of the lotus or with canna seeds. (This is similar to the scarifying of sweet clover seed,=Editor,.) This is the reason that several times as much clover seed--even good seed--must be used on an acre as seems necessary for securing the desired number of plants. One of these modifications is usual in the outer layers of cell-walls on the surface, and it is called cuticularization. Cuticularized walls are more or less completely water-proofed. When the cells that produce nectar are at the surface, their outer walls are cuticularized in this way; when they are within the necetary and the nectar passes out through stomata, this is scarcely, if at all, the case.