It is dark and thick, but has a very pleasant flavor, something like
humble-bee honey, as we mentioned last fall, and very different from
either clover or basswood honey.
We have had no buckwheat nearer than two and a half miles, and we
followed the bees one morning all the way there, as our wild flowers
were not then in blossom. We think we can afford, next year, to give
farmers within one and a half miles of us, a dollar per acre to raise
buckwheat. It is true it might prove a failure, but we are used to
failures occasionally.
Many thanks to Mr. Tillinghast, on page 63, and also to yourself, Mr.
Editor. When we commenced here with bees, our locality certainly was
called poor. Bees had ceased to pay, and were dying out; and had we not
been so much discouraged by what bee-keepers told us, we should
probably have commenced sooner. One man purchased a hundred stocks, but
utterly played out the first year. Black bees are now increasing around
us at quite a brisk rate; but that is about all they do.
Mr. Tillinghast says that amount of honey (5,000), in the time, in his
locality, “is simply impossible.” We think he would have done better to
have said, _in his opinion_. We poor mortals very often have a very
imperfect idea of what is possible. After the account was given in our
county paper, that our bees were bringing in two hundred pounds of honey
per day, and that one stock alone gathered forty-three pounds in three
days, it was pronounced utterly impossible; and that if those who told
it would consider, they would see that _it could not be_! And we were
obliged to invite them publicly to come down and sit by one of our hives
all day, weighing it at intervals, if nothing else would convince them,
before they were still.
Counting the number of flower heads that a bee visits is a new idea to
us; but we cannot think our bees visit more than a dozen certainly. One
day in June, when we examined the red clover, we should think a bee
would get a fair load from a single blossom; and many of them were
working in the red clover at the time. The number stated seems as though
the printer had made a mistake with the figures. Nearly ten blossoms in
a minute for a whole hour, and not more than a load then! We agree that
must be poor pasturage.
Nearly every year since we have kept bees has been called, by more or
less unsuccessful ones, the “poorest” season ever known; yet, so far as
honey is concerned, all _we_ ask is--more _just like them_.
The only plant we have ever cultivated for bees is the Alsike clover, of
which we have about half an acre, sown last spring on the snow, and
which has bloomed quite profusely for the last six weeks, but is now
nearly gone. We think our bees kept at least one sentinel to the _square
foot_ of it, to watch for the honey as it collected.
We had a visitor the other day (in fact, we have visitors by the score,
and we are ashamed to say, to our sorrow sometimes). Well, this one for
a while did not think proper to inform us whether he kept bees on the
“brimstone plan” and came to convince us it was the best way, or whether
he was the Editor of the BEE JOURNAL himself (of the latter we were very
sure, as we think we should know _him_ anywhere); but eventually he
taught us some things, and we hope he learned some things from us. His
visit did not last quite twenty-four hours, but he really made us feel
quite lonely, for more than that length of time after he was gone. One
simple thing, that Gallup has often said before, but we did not believe
it, our visitor convinced us of--namely, that rotten wood is ahead of
all tobacco, rags, or anything else, for subduing bees, especially
hybrids, who will sometimes “fight till death” when tobacco is used, but
would turn around and go down between the frames “without ever a word”
under the influence of rotten wood smoke. But don’t do as we did next
day after he left us, and drop fire into the saw-dust. We burnt up a
heavy two-story Langstroth of Italians before we discovered the muss,
and the stream of melted wax and smoking honey that ran out in lava-like
channels was a warning to all Novices.
And then we had some robbing at OUR house. We got about half a dozen
frames of empty comb hastily put in a new hive, and removed the burnt
one, and got the bees to bringing in the honey that had run out (they
wouldn’t eat melted wax); but before they had got it all done, there
arose an “_on_pleasantness” as to _ownership_ that finally mixed itself
into a grand jubilee, in spite of Novice. The burnt hive is patched up,
and the combs and bees are back into it, minus their queen, about forty
pounds of honey, and ten frames of comb of such evenness and beauty,
that some one (who wanted to pick a fuss) said we thought more of them
than of our wife and family.
Our visitor aforementioned says he has never written but one article on
bees, and we think that so richly deserves a place in the Journal, that
we mail it to you.
And now, Mr. Editor, we would say before closing, that in our humble
opinion, the results we have achieved this year, are no nearer what _may
be_ done in scientific bee-culture, than the old brimstone way is to our
present method, and humbly beg to be still considered a