SOUTHERN BEE CULTURE 131 



not consider the honey the best. In a damp season it has a way of ferment- 

 ing, or working in the combs. I hava seen the cappings somewhat raised 

 from the combs from this cause. While some seasons the honey is light in 

 color ^nd good flavor (mind you, I am giving only facts in this immediate lo- 

 cation) a great many tell me from other sections that the honey is fine in 

 color and flavor. 



But still there is a bright side to this seemingly dark picture. In the 

 lime lands or prairie belt of our State, where the land has got too poor to 

 grow cotton or other crops, melilotus, or sweet clover, has stepped in and 

 commenced to rebuild what cotton has torn down. It takes hold of all waste 

 places such as roadsides, ditch-banks, and flourishes in deepest gullies where 

 nothing else will grow. I have seen it six to seven feet high in the deepest 

 gullies, which it soon fills up and again produces fine crops. I have knowfl 

 land that made only about eight bushels of corn per acre, which when run 

 in sweet clover for a few years, would yield from 25 to 30 bushels; so it 

 seems as if nature were giving us something back to take the place of our 

 forest ; and the beauty of it is our farmers are not fighting it as I see they do 

 in some States. How a farmer can be so blind to his own interest I can't 

 see. Our farmers are mowing hundreds of tons of hay from it, and say it 

 is the very best. They are the very ones who introduced it here; but the 

 bee man has begun to reap a rich harvest from it. It begins to bloom about 

 June I, here, and yields a light-colored and fine-flavored honey when well 

 ripened on the hive. I think it is as fine as we can produce here. The yield 

 varies according to the amount of waste land and the location. I can give 

 you some idea by mentioning one instance. 



A few years ago a friend of mine bought an apiary, paying $500 for it, 

 taking possession in June. He paid for it in sixty days with melilotus honey, 

 that being his onlj source. You can see by this it is a fine yielder, and has the 

 fewest off years of any plant I know of, consequently the prairie belt is be- 

 coming dotted with beautiful up-to-date apiaries with modern methods; aod 

 business men are not only investing their hundreds but thousands in the 

 business. A few whom I will mention are located in my county, some 

 twelve miles north of me. The Letohatchee apiaries, the owners of which 

 are putting in something like 700 colonies with up-to-date hives and methods. 

 Sweet clover there is the only source; also two enterprising young men, 

 Messrs. Brown and Knight, of Hayeville, Ala., who own several large 

 apiaries, something like 500 colonies, besides several large apiaries outside the 

 county, Mr. Brown is a New York man ; Mr. Knight, a native Alabamian ; 

 also a Mr. David S. Hurst, of Letohatchee, Ala., who is engaging in the busi- 

 ness quite extensively, owning several hundred colonies, besides being ex- 

 tensively engaged in the queen-business. Besides these is Mr. C. M. Berry, 

 of Morganville, Ala., who owns several hundred colonies, making a success of 

 the business. I think he is a native of Georgia, and full of Southern grit. 



Besides these are hundreds of small apiaries too numerous to mention. 



Now comes the most difficult part of this article, that is, trying to tell 

 you something of my own experience. I have been interested in bees since 



