Fruit blossoms—apricot, peach, pear, plum, cherry, apple, currant, and gooseberry—yield pollen and honey in abundance during April or May; strawberry and blackberry are sometimes visited freely by bees, but are generally far less important than the others mentioned. Colonies that have wintered well often gather during apple bloom 12 to 15 pounds of surplus honey of fine quality. The raspberry secretes a large amount of nectar of superb quality, and coming in May or June, thus later than the other fruit blossoms and when the colonies are stronger and the weather is more settled, full advantage can nearly always be taken of this yield. Grape and persimmon blossom also in June; the latter is an excellent source. In subtropical portions of the country orange and lemon trees yield fine honey in March and April, and the cultivation of the banana has added a profuse honey yielder which puts forth successive blossoms all through the summer months.
Locust, tulip tree ("poplar," or whitewood), and horse-chestnut, useful for shade, ornament, and timber, are all fine honey producers in May. The locust yields light-colored, clear honey of fine quality, the others amber-colored honey of good body and fair flavor.
Clovers.—Crimson, blossoming in April or May, yields fine, light-colored honey; white, alsike, and mammoth or medium, blossoming in May, June, and July, give honey of excellent quality and rich yellow color.
Mustard grown for seed flowers from June to August. The honey is somewhat acrid and crystallizes soon, yet the plant, where abundant, is of much importance to the bees and the bee keeper in case other forage is scant at the time.
Asparagus blossoms are much visited by bees in June and July.
Esparcet, or sainfoin, yields in May and June fine honey, almost as clear as spring water. It is a perennial leguminous plant, rather hardy, an excellent forage crop, and particularly valuable for milch cows. It succeeds best on a limestone soil or when lime is used as a fertilizer, and is itself an excellent green manure for soils deficient in nitrogen and phosphoric acid.
Sulla, or sulla clover, a perennial plant, closely related to esparcet or sainfoin, succeeds, like the latter, best upon limestone soil or when fertilized with lime. It yields a splendid quality of honey from beautiful pink blossoms, which continue during May and June. The plant is an excellent soil fertilizer and of great value in connection with the feeding of stock, particularly dairy animals. It is, however, much less hardy than esparcet, and success with it can therefore hardly be looked for above the latitude of North Carolina and Arkansas. When the qualities and requirements of this plant were brought by the writer to the notice of a prominent scientific agriculturist of the South, this gentleman suggested as very probable that the black belt of Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas would be well adapted to it, the lands of this region being exceedingly strong in lime. In portions of southern Europe sulla clover is a most important forage crop for farm stock as well as for honey bees.
Serradella is an annual leguminous plant which will grow on sandy land, and which yields, besides good forage, clear honey of good quality in June and July.
Chestnut, valuable for timber, ornament, shade, and nuts, yields honey and pollen in June or July.