1887 - Melissa (Lemon Balm): #11 of Root's Bee Plants

This year, the first spring I have been retired from teaching, I filled the porch with seed trays.  I stole the shop lights from the basement, bought some more, and had quite the jolly display of green out there during a wretched cold early spring.  

That's a cosmos intruding on the lemon balm :-)

One reason I did this is A. I. Root's catalog of seeds which offered them as bee plants.  I am a fledgling beekeeper  
Anything I grow will probably be ignored by my bees as they look for large, economical to visit, patches of bee friendly flowers.  (My yard does not lend itself to large patches of anything, being a glacial hillside of oaks and pines...)  But maybe the plants I am growing will occasionally be at least an amuse-bouche!

Source

Woodville, W., Medical botany, (1793)

Beekeepers around the late 1800s, were interested in identifying great bee plants as the idea of establishing bee pastures was being considered and tried.  Just as you have pastures for cows, the bees could have pasture land devoted to their nectar and pollen plants.  Later the beekeeping community decided it would not pay unless there was also money to be made from selling the pasture crop after the bees were done with it...like buckwheat.

Here is the info that made the beekeeper's ears perk up!

The Melissa honey plant is a very sweet mint, which grows about a foot high and bears a beautiful white blossom. It did well at the Michigan Station (B. 65), blossomed freely, and was very generally visited by the bees, blooming from early in July for a month or more. Unfortunately it is an annual, does not seed itself, and must be planted each year. It is considered doubtful if this would pay. On 3 acres of Melissa the bees had swarmed in early August—a thing unprecedented in the State.                             1891 - American Bee Journal

The period of bloom of bee balm, July, August, is when there is generally a dearth of nectar and pollen, a time when beekeepers around me (New England) nowadays have to feed their bees to keep the numbers up to be ready to go out in early fall to gather the nectar available from fall flowers.  If the hive is large enough they will gather in the fall the honey they need to live through the winter plus extra which the beekeeper harvests!  Spring is a honey gathering season, summer is pathetic, and fall might be a honey gathering season.  

  

But here is the kicker... the darn stuff now is NOT considered a bee plant especially!!  And I thought I'd treat my bees to a patch of something nice.  Sheesh...

Bee Culture - Volume 124 - Page 363  1996 - ‎Snippet view                                        Bee balm, Lemon balm or Bee-herb - these names all refer to the plant Melissa officinalis, an aromatic, perennial herb that has been associated with bees for centuries. This plant is native to regions of the northern Mediterranean, and the ancient Greeks called it Melissophyllon, which means "beloved by bees."   Despite claims in many older books, the white flowers of Bee balm do not attract honey bees to any great extent, as the flower tubes appear to be too long and narrow for them ...

On the bright side, it makes a nice herbal tea.   I'll treat me to something nice!

This manuscript from about 500 AD looks very much like my seedlings, doesn't it?

Here is some fun stuff about lemon balm: 

The name "Melissa" has a long history with roots reaching back to even before Ancient Greece. For this reason, in part, there are several versions of the story surrounding the mythological character Melissa, especially in how she came to care for the infant Zeus. In one version, Melissa, a mountain-nymph hid Zeus from his father, Cronus, who was intent on devouring his progeny.[9] She fed Zeus goat's milk from Amaltheaand fed him honey, giving him a permanent taste for it even once he came to rule on Mount Olympus. Cronus became aware of Melissa's role in thwarting his murderous design and changed her into an earthworm. Zeus, however, took pity and transformed her into a beautiful bee.     Wikipedia