Thimble Berries and Salmon Berries

    Both thimble berries and salmon berries are in the Rubus family and are thus cousins of the raspberries.  We have a lot of salmon berries in western Washington and a lesser amount of thimble berries. While there are a lot of salmon berries in my neighborhood,  I've never seen my bees pay much attention to them. Neither have I noticed large quantities of nectar coming into the hives when the salmon berries are in bloom. This is something I certainly would notice as the salmon berries bloom at a time when I am always feeding my bees lots of sugar syrup.

Thimble berry blossoms

     I wasn't aware of any significant patches of thimble berries in my neighborhood until recently.  This past week I noticed a patch of big white blossoms a little more than a quarter mile from my house.  The thimbleberries really stood out because the surrounding blackberries weren't blooming yet.  Then the following day I found another thimble berry patch about a quarter mile to the north,  The first time I only noticed bumble bees working the blossoms but the temperature was only 52 degrees.  Today I looked at the thimble berries when it was 72 degrees and again I only saw bumble bees working the blossoms.  That may be the reason thimble berries didn't make it into the plant section in Honey Plants of North America.  I would expect my bees to find any plant within a half mile that was a good nectar source.

     Thimble berries actually have a pretty good flavor, but an unfortunate mealy texture.  I've often thought they would make a wonderful jelly, but its hard to find a sufficient quantity in one place to make it worth the trouble to gather them. If anyone ever gives me a gift of thimble berry jelly I will know they put an awful lot of work into the gift.