8 Farmers’ Bulletin 1216. 
PRESENT DEVELOPMENT OF BEEKEEPING IN THE 
REGION. | 
Beekeeping has long been extensively practiced in the buckwheat 
region, especially in New York, but there are vast areas in New 
York, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia where there is little com- 
mercial beekeeping and where there are not enough small beekeepers 
to utilize much of the nectar from this species. It has long been 
recognized that this region is especially adapted to commercial bee- 
keeping. This is so because of the large acreage of this plant, but 
especially because of the widespread distribution of European foul- 
brood, which makes side-line beekeeping well-nigh impossible. Even 
in parts of the region where there was formerly an extensive devel- 
opment of the industry there is now great opportunity for the 
growth of the business of beekeeping. The presence of disease has 
had a serious retarding effect on honey production in this region, be- 
cause of a failure even on the part of many of the better beekeepers 
to control it properly. Not only has European foulbrood retarded 
the industry but a failure on the part of the beekeepers to practice 
the best methods of beekeeping has resulted in a great reduction in 
the crop per colony. The number of colonies of bees to the square 
mile in this area, except in localities where the bees have been eradi- 
cated by disease and because of poor management, is almost as great 
as in any other part of the United States. In spite of this condition, 
the honey production of the region is inadequate. Especially where 
the honey resources are augmented by nectar from the clovers or 
some other plant which furnishes nectar earlier in the season than 
does buckwheat, there is opportunity for the development of exten- 
sive beekeeping operations. Buckwheat might easily be the source 
of far more honey than is now produced in this region. 
PECULIARITIES OF THE REGION. 
One of the difficulties in the development of the buckwheat honey 
region has been the lack of specific literature dealing with this im- 
portant area. The practices of the clover region, which have formed 
so large a part of the beekeeping literature, are not suitable for the 
gathering of the full crop from buckwheat, although the basic prin- 
ciples of beekeeping practice are everywhere the same. Beekeepers 
who depend on sets of rules have failed to succeed in the buckwheat 
region when they have followed rules laid down by beekeepers oper- 
ating in the clover region. This lack of specific literature concern- 
ing buckwheat as a honey-plant is a serious one, and the chief object 
of this bulletin is partially to make up this deficiency. 
As buckwheat secretes nectar so late in the summer, the colonies of 
bees properly cared for reach the peak of their prosperity too long 
