AUGUST 1, 1914 



571 



bees breed so fast that they will swarm 

 unless given a large amount of r^om. At 

 other times the flow is intermittent, but just 

 fast enough most of the time to keep up 

 breeding; and when the bees go into winter 

 quarters they are in fine condition. 



Ordinarily there is not much honey in 

 most of our northern localities after Sept. 

 1; but after that date Mr. Halter has split 

 his colonies in halves and built up each half 

 into a fail- colony for winter. We are start- 

 ing with a hundred colonies about the last 

 of July. What increase he will be able to 

 make for us during the next two months 

 remains to be seen ; but we are arranging to 

 send over more bees where there are some- 

 thing like 1000 acres of swamp land, only 

 parts of which are used for pasturing cattle. 

 If we can " turn the trick " we shall pasture 

 bees there also. 



THE BEE-FORAGE IN THAT THOUSAND-ACRE 

 SWAMP. 



We had a great curiosity to know what 

 might be found in that swamp where bees 

 breed so well, and accordingly drove over 

 tliis week. We took along Dr. C. D. Free- 

 man, a botanist, and Judge Kennan, of this 

 place, and on arriving at Akron picked up 

 Mr. Halter. Together we went clear around 

 the .swamp with Mr. Halter as guide; and 

 one needs a guide in such dense shrubbery 

 and underbrush. We would penetrate the 

 swamp a half-mile or so, and then go back 

 to the machine, mn up the road a distance 

 of several miles, and then take to the swamp 

 again. In that way we traversed the whole 

 area, or, to speak more exactly, the outer 

 edge of this series of swamps. 



It has been said that a large portion of 

 this swamp land covers a subteri-anean lake; 

 and the statement has been made that cer- 

 tain of the islands where the water comes 

 to the surface are really floating islands, 

 ■ because their position changes every now 

 and then, especially after a big wind. The 

 further statement is made that there are 

 certain bottomless pits and other places 

 where one may be so mired that unless he 

 can secure help he will be buried in un- 

 known deptlis. (We have accepted the two 

 last statements with a few grains of allow- 

 ance.) We did not penetrate far enough 

 into the swamp land to form very much of 

 an idea of its interior. After we had gone 

 lialf a mile we concluded it would be far 

 more practicable to hire an aeroplane, as it 

 was almost impossible to penetrate some of 

 the dense thickets. However, we came to the 

 conclusion that what we found on the outer 

 edges of the swamp we should probably find 

 at the interior. 



Here were hundreds and hundieds of 

 acres of waste land, some of which cannot 

 be used even for cow pasture; but, fortu- 

 nately, we found a number of well-known 

 honey-plants — plants which we would not 

 have recognized except for the assistance of 

 our friend Dr. Freeman. First, there was 

 the familiar sweet clover on the upland. 

 Then came the common milkweed. But what 

 attracted our attention particularly on one 

 of these incursions was a mass of showy red 

 blossoms that were distributed over small 

 patches here and there over the swamp land. 

 Dr. Freeman identified this as swamp milk- 

 weed {Asclepias incarnata). The bees were 

 busily at work on it — hundreds and hun- 

 dreds of them. Then we found other hun- 

 dreds busy on the blue verbena, sometimes 

 called " ver\'ain " {Verbena hastata). The 

 roar of the bees as they made their way 

 back and forth from our apiary a quarter 

 of a mile away ; the blue and the crimson as 

 we found it here before our eyes in the 

 swamp caused us to see visions of beeyards 

 scattered around these thousand acres; but 

 tliis vision may materialize in only a very 

 limited way. 



" But, Mr. Halter," we said, " what comes 

 on next when these are all gone ? " 



" Look," he said, as he pointed out some 

 boneset, or thoroughwort. " Here is a plant 

 that is supposed to have wonderful medic- 

 inal value." 



When we asked the doctor what he 

 thought about it he gave expression to one 

 of those dubious smiles that convinced us he 

 did not take much stock in the statement. 



For the benefit of our botanical friends 

 we may say this is known as Eupatorium 

 perfoliatum. Boneset, or thoroughwort, is a 

 good honey-plant for breeding up ; but the 

 honey is of a very inferior quality. Unfor- 

 tunately it comes on at a time when buck- 

 wheat is being stored. Buckwheat honey 

 with boneset in it is practically ruined for 

 table use, for the honey, like the leaves of 

 the plant, is bitter. 



Pushing on further we found various 

 species of wild sunflower; acres and acres 

 of goldenrod; button-bush; some species of 

 saw-weed, and asters galore; and last but 

 not least some stray specimens of Simpson 

 honey-plant, or fig-wort {Scroplmlaria nodo- 

 sa). 



This plant, be it said, provoked a good 

 deal of discussion thirty years ago. A. I. 

 Root, in his early days, had a big plot of it ; 

 but after trying that and the spider-plant 

 he concluded that, while both were remark- 

 able yielders of nectar, the cost of cultivat- 

 ing either of them would render it unprof- 

 itable to set them out for honey alone. 



