Bob et al:

Most of my customers, having been used to the light honey sold at stores, 
don’t seem to appreciate my Rising Sun, the orange dark honey from sumac, 
till they have actually tasted it, but then only a few are converted.  To 
improve the color and at the same time to enhance the exqusite floral 
scent in the elixir, I had planted hundreds of Vitex (Chaste Tree) along 
the fence of my ten-acre plot six years ago: I plant nearly two hundred 
sapplings every year during late winter in their dormancy; this year I was 
able to plant only 183 sapplings I got from St. Gregory’s University 
nearby.  The nectar from Vitex has lightened up my orange-red honey to 
such extent that it is super-light amber now, still retaining all the 
floral essence common in my area.  I would say my honey is lighter than 
most store-brands.

A word of caution on Vitex.  I had originally planted them since there is 
little forage after sumac fizzles away between mid-July and late August 
(Goldenrod), knowing that Vitex blooms nearly all summer, starting late 
May; however, even Vitex blooms dry up late July although the literature 
brags how it blooms till frost, a technical fact but not much to work on 
after the initial explosive flowering.  Most of the late blooms are 
servicing bumbles and other native pollinators right now with a handful of 
bees.  

Never broadcast Vitex seeds; they will not come up.  They have to be 
raised, after freezing for a month, in a seeding bed.  But they will bloom 
in the first year.  Another benefit of Vitex, other than helping female 
hormonal imbalance (PMS), is that my horses and even goats would not touch 
them; only in the fall, the latter would munch on the drying and fallen 
leaves with gusto.  Then again, goats will clear up just about anything.  
My horses graze between the rows as if I had asked them to weed the grass 
in between, thus helping the Vitex.  Deciduous shrub, Vitex forms a 
maginificient hedge in summer, stopping any prying eye into my beeyards.  
Another keeper told me that one acre of Vitex will support two hundred 
colonies.  That’s possible, I suppose, but not likely.  But his statement 
supports the prolific nature of their blossom.

Yoon

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