The early summer flow starts with Black Locust trees. Their drooping clusters of white flowers don't produce every year, but when they do they hum with bees, and yield a water white honey of heavy body and mild flavor. Beehives in some locales can also put in a sizable crop of honey at this time from both Wild Blackberry and Raspberry bushes. It is a superior honey and, like locust, very light-colored.
The main event for many beekeepers begins in mid-June with the onset of the clover flow. For about two weeks various species of clover grown as feed for dairy cows flower and, especially in hot, humid days of early summer, produce tremendous quantities of nectar. Hives on platform scales have shown 12 pound gains in a single day as the bee yard roars with activity. It is the clovers and their close relatives in the legume family of plants that have turned Vermont into a land of milk and honey, and clover honey, so rich and smooth, is a special favorite.
Probably the most identifiable clover is White Dutch. Most people have seen bees working in its small, low growing flowers on their lawns or in pastures. Alsike, the queen of clovers, is a major component of good hay. Tallish, with large white heads tinged with pink, it thrives in sweet clay soils like those found in the Champlain Valley. Some beekeepers have estimated that an acre of Alsike will produce 500 pounds of honey in a good season. The nectar of red clover, the state flower, is ironically not available to honeybees. Their tongues are too short to reach the nectar at the base of the flowers. Bee breeders have actually been trying for years to develop a long tongued honeybee that can work red clover, as bumblebees can. The frenzy of the clover flow has usually subsided in the bee yard by the Fourth of July, when the first cut of hay is down and in the barns, and by this time the better part of a hive's surplus may have been made.
Honey from the beautiful Basswood tree is next. A six-to-ten day flow in early July (again, not to be depended upon every year) produces a fine honey, light colored and slightly minty. The purple flowers of Alfalfa, the world's most widespread forage crop, grown on farms everywhere in Vermont, can attract bees in July if conditions are right, and if farmers don't cut and bail it before it blooms. Many Wild flowers, Vetch, Milkweed, Sumac, and several Mint varieties, round out the summer crop and lend a bit of piquancy to it.
