SOUTHERN BEE CULTURE 141 



what is being done in bee-keeping; but as there is very little doing I feel 

 compelled to give a truthful statement. 



I commenced to keep bees eight years ago last May, and to-day I own 

 350 colonies. I am making more profit out of my bees than any other man I 

 know of on their fleecy staple, cotton. I averaged this year (which has 'been 

 a little better than the average) 85 sections to the colony of comb honey. 

 We have here a lot of different plants that yield honey and pollen in the 

 early spring. About the first thing the bees go to is the hammocks, and find 

 a lot of early bloom the names of which I am unable to give. This gives 

 them a start, and stimulates brood-raising. Then comes fruit-bloom, such as 

 peaches, pears, plums, etc On this they begin to swarm, which is about 

 the first or second week in March, and we generally have swarming for about 

 six weeks; but we never have a rush of swarms, or, as some term it, the 

 swarming fever. 



About the first of May the chinquepin commences to bloom, and then 

 you see the bees begin to rush ; and they will put a good feeling on their 

 keeper, for he knows there is going to be a lot of brood raised, and the 

 hives all filled, and all his new swarms are going to get ready for the good 

 honey-flow as I term it. The chinquepin yields both honey and pollen, and 

 it is gotten from the bloom entirely. The honey has a peculiar smell, a 

 bitter-sweet taste, and has a reddish color. I have found but few people 

 who like it. In some parts of the country we have some gallberry that yields 

 honey about the same time the chinquepin does; and where the gallberry 

 grows we have no chinquepin. The gallberry is found in flat woods, and the 

 chinquepin on the hilly woods of this country. Chinquepin generally gives us 

 some surplus from a few pounds to as much as 50 lbs. to the colony of comb 

 honey. I do not know what it would do for extracted, as I run only for comb. 

 The only extracting I do is to extract this chinquepin honey from the sec- 

 tions and let the bees refill the combs with good honey. 



Now we come up to the good honey-flow, which begins about June 15, 

 or about ten days after chinquepin bloom is over. Sometimes the bloom of 

 the chinquepin about meets or comes up to the good honey-flow, which is 

 gathered from the partridge-pea weed, and then we have another good feel- 

 ing brought over us, as we know we are going to get something for our 

 labor. The bees gather honey from the stem, buds, and bloom of the par- 

 tridge-peas, and it is a steady flow from about June 15 to Sept 15, and some- 

 times as late as Oct. i,. and this is our main stake ; and without them we 

 could hardly make much profit on bees, although we get some honey from 

 cotton and field-peas, which are both grown here to some extent, but not 

 enough to make any show in our honey crop, as it comes along with the 

 partridge-peas, and we never see the effects on the honey, as the partridge- 

 peas predominate over everything else. The woods are a perfect yellow sheet 

 when they are in full bloom, and they grow in the field after the oats are cut 

 off, in fence-corners, and almost everywhere. 



There is one thing I have not mentioned, and I will give it here. It is 

 the blackberry, which blooms ahead of the chinquepin ; but we never get any 



