368 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



November 



important, and a little from sumac. 

 From the latter he gets just enough 

 to color the honey as it comes from 

 the extractor, as a rule. The sumac 

 honey when stored by itself, he finds 

 to be greenish but light in color and 

 strong in flavor. Some buckwheat is 

 grown in the country round about, 

 but he finds it important as a source 

 of surplus onl}' about one year in ten. 

 In his honey house is one big settling 

 tank that holds 27,000 pounds, which 

 makes it possible to keep the ex- 

 tractor humming without stopping to 

 fill a lot of cans every few hours. At 

 the time of the visit, fourteen thou- 

 sand pounds of raspberry honey was 

 piled up in sixty-pound cans, ready 

 to be shipped to market. 

 The roads are splendid, and since 



one or the other is almost certain to 

 yield, and both are likely to do so. 

 Mr. P. W. Sowinski lives not far 

 from Mr. Gordon and his honey 

 comes from similar sources. After 

 visiting beekeepers whose supers 

 were empty in the clover region, one 

 could hardly believe his eyes when 

 he beheld the hives piled high and 

 was assured that they were actually 

 full of honey. Mr. Sowinski was haul- 

 ing the honey from the outyard and 

 getting it into cans as fast as one 

 man could extract it. As already 

 stated, most of the raspberry honey 

 was already extracted and the milk- 

 weed flow was at the height. One of 

 his yards is situated in a cherry or- 

 chard and the trees were heavily 

 loaded with the finest cherries, which 



GORDON'S BIG TANK HOLDS 27,000 POUNDS OF HONEY. AND IT TAKES A 

 LADDER TO GET A PEEP OVER THE TOP. 



they are all surfaced with gravel it 

 is possible to drive right through, 

 rain or shine, with an auto, without 

 stopping to put on chains. Such 

 roads give the beekeeper, with out- 

 yards and a car, a pleasure instead 

 of a drudgery, as in days gone by. 



To a man coming from the prairie 

 country where milkweeds grow only 

 occasionally, it is astonishing to see 

 them in such abundance. It was Au- 

 gust, and the bees were working 

 busily bringing in honey. After see- 

 ing the fields covered with milk- 

 weeds, it was no great surprise to 

 learn that as high as fifty pounds of 

 honey per colony could be depended 

 upon from this source. The State 

 law requires that they be cut, but in 

 some neighborhoods, where there is 

 a large proportion of unused land, it 

 is out of the question to cut them. 

 However, ■ milkweed locations are 

 only to be found here and there; 

 they are not so common as the rasp- 

 berry locations. The man who has a 

 series of yards in reach of both milk- 

 weed and raspberry has little reason 

 to fear failure of the honey crop, as 



BLOSSOM OF THE FIREWEED. 



seemingly nobody had time to pick. 

 Next to raspberry. Northern Alich- 

 igan is famous for its fireweed, or 

 willow herb. It was not until Bo}-ne 

 Falls was reached that willow herb 

 in any quantity was seen. At that 

 place live the Hubbard brothers, 

 Fred and Roy, who are extensively 

 engaged in the production of comb 

 honey. They average from eighty to 

 ninety finished sections of comb 



ONE OF GORDON'S YARDS IS NEARLY HIDDEN BY MILKWEEDS. 



