The Buzz Newsletter

May 2004

 

 

Page 9

Camelthorn Honey

Camelthorn is a one to three foot tall plant with small reddish purple blooms that open in June and July. The plants are very deep rooted and drought tolerant. The stems of the plant are lined with 1 1/4 inch long spines that make it difficult to walk through. The plants are found in isolated areas in Arizona, often in abandoned farm fields. Cattle can graze on it during early growth, and during the flowering stage. After producing small bean pods of seeds, cattle also can feed on the pods.

The flowers are very attractive to honeybees and other nectar gathering insects in June and July. The honey gathered by the honeybees is very light in color and mild flavored. During the bloom the bees work it almost exclusively, with very strong colonies producing 100 to 150 pounds per colony. Because of the plant’s drought tolerance, it has become a very welcome portion of our honey production in the last 3 or 4 years. In 2001 I entered some Camelthorn honey in the “very light” category in the Coconino County and Arizona State Fair. Both won Blue ribbons. Because it produces such a unique light honey, I decided to keep it separate rather than mix it into the Flagstaff Wildflower honey. Now all I have to do is convince the consumer that Camelthorn is something besides an odd looking smelly critter with one or two humps and thorns.

As a beekeeper I get to taste some very unique (mostly good) honey, sometimes produced in small quantities that get lost in the mix of the 4 or 5 standard flavors or floral sources. Camelthorn is one of my favorites that can be collected as an almost singular floral source. Please give it a try.

Dennis Arp

Submitted by Ruth Arp

 

The Growing Days

Hi, all!
The demand for Shelly Elliott’s EXCEL spreadsheet that logs field activity prompts me to offer a spreadsheet of my own, one that tracks growing days during the year. My spreadsheet essentially calculates degree-days, adding to the cumulative total on anyday when the average temperature exceeds 50 degrees. A killing frost (<32 deg) resets the total to zero. A warmish day when the average doesn’t reach 50 deg is counted as neutral; it doesn’t kill plants, but they don’t grow, either. Horticulturalists interested in particular plants may fine-tune and use some cut-off other than 50 deg, but 50 appears to be a good general number.

The reason to do this is that different species of plants and insects flourish in response to degree days. The index, therefore, is independent of the calendar, or, in other words, of the weather in a particular year. I wrote my program to use for beekeeping, to track when honey flows start for different blooms (locust, alsike, sweet clover, buckwheat, goldenrod, …), but it also is good for IPM planning (when to expect white flies, flea beetles, Colorado potato beetles, …) Each day you enter low and high temperatures, comments (if any) on what plants have started blooming and what bugs are showing up, and (optionally) rainfall. The program graphs daily temperatures and weekly average temperatures, cumulative yearly growdays, and cumulative yearly rainfall. Like all logging programs, its only useful if you keep it up day by day, so if you are not likely to do that, forget it! Yes, it’s a pain for the first year, but after a couple of years patterns start to emerge and it turns into a strong tool. Or so I’m told!

I’ll share it free with those who want it: email me privately at

dave.kathy@att.net.

Dave Campbell
Tiffin IA