> Fully understanding Randy and Peters point about not wanting to be teachers,
> but "informed discussion"  but with todays email and communication so easy,
> is that really the point of a bulletin board?

I think Randy is very keen on being a teacher and on being equipped with the best information to do it. Bee-L is supposed to be a discussion group. Looking back at the archives, you get a sense that this is what it has been from the beginning. Here is an interesting exchange from 1991:

I am not a bee biologist, but I am a hobby beekeeper and I have enjoyed
"listening in" on your network to learn more about my bees and to groan at
your terrible jokes.  Now we have a situation here is Minnesota which perhaps
someone could help with.  One of the members of the MN Hobby Beekeepers Assn.
has harvested some green honey and on one can explain how this could happin.
  In the frame, the cells looked a blue/green color.  In the jar, the honey
first looked olive-colored green, but as the jar sat on the window sill for
several days, it turned a bright kelly green.  Rus Johnson, the author, has
about 150 pounds.  He does not know what plants the bees were visiting when
they brought this crop in.
  Can anyone explain this?

JOSELYN

* * *

GREEN HONEY

One plant which has a tendency to produce nectar which results in green
honey is Purple Loosestrife (Lythrum salicaria L. (Lythraceae)). It
grows in damp areas, along roadside ditches, etc. and is a great nectar
producer. Greenish coloured honeys are quite well-known, but I don't
know of a list of honey-plants and the colour honey they produce.
 
Cheers, Peter 
	
Peter Kevan <[log in to unmask]>

* * *

Bill Sames says that several nectars would give a
honey that appears greenish in the comb but is usually
golden yellow when extracted.  For example, Goldenrod.
If you wish, send us a pound jar of the green honey and
we will have it analyzed for its pollen content using an
scanning electron microscope.  This may give you some idea
of what plants were harvested.  Pellet's 1947 edition of
American Honey Plants has several references to green
honey.  Also Lovell, Honey Plants of North America,
(1926) refers to green honey.
 
==========================================================
Merry Makela                  |   [log in to unmask]
Knowledge Engineering Lab     |   Department of Entomology
Texas A&M University          |

* * *

I am sure that the following is not the explanation for your green
honey (the author grew up in California), but perhaps you will find
it interesting.  I told my wife about the green honey, and she
provided me with this quote from "The Art of Eating" by M.F.K.
Fisher.
 
"Mrs. Cheever, for instance, would get a consignment of
strange honey from the Torrey pine trees, honey which only a
few people in the world were supposed to have eaten.  I
remember it now with some excitement, as a grainy greenish stuff
like some I once ate near Adelboden in the Bernese Alps, but then
it was to most of us just something sweet and rather queer to put
on hot biscuits."
 
John Naples

* * *

Comment:

To me this shows that people have been comfortable asking questions over the years and so-called experts have been patient and willing to help if they can. Breaking down the barriers between us, we learn we have a lot in common and a lot to share

Pete

             ***********************************************
The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software.  For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html