AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



493 



here by taking "gums" in pay for 

 practice. 



Neches river bottom comes within 

 3 miles of us, and is from 4 to 8 miles 

 wide, and this near the mouth ; 300 

 miles by its current, it often covers 5 

 miles with water, when men owning 

 hogs and cattle have to bring them out 

 in boats. There are a few small farms 

 or clearings on high spots, and many of 

 the "swampers," as we call the folks 

 living there, keep a few bees, generally 

 in log-gums — cut off from a black-gum 

 tree, whence the name. 



and found about 50 pounds of nice 

 honey. 



Last March I went into the edge of 

 Hardin county, in the swamp, to see a 

 sick little girl. Her father and brother- 

 in-law had together then some 115 

 "gums "of all conceivable styles — flat, 

 round and square. They had a swarm 

 in a 10-pound fish-kit, with a 10-pound 

 tea-caddy on top, and they had wintered 

 and had 8 or 10 pounds of honey left. 

 They were black bees. One colony was 

 in a 20-pound talc-box ; another in a 

 roll of hickory bark 3 feet long, and the 



# 





Arkansas State Building at the World's Columbian Exposition, in 1893. 



These people usually get their start 

 by hunting a bee-tree. I was at a cut- 

 ting the last of July. It was a huge 

 cypress 6 feet in diameter, and took two 

 men a full one-half day's work to fell it. 

 They got probably more than 100 

 pounds of honey, and some 3 pounds of 

 wax, and gave me the bees. At the 

 village I saw 3 men work abtmt 3 hours 

 to cut a cypress, which fell in a slough 

 10 feet deep, and we never saw even the 

 hole that the bees went into the tree. 

 These men lost their temper, as it was 

 the 4th of July, and quite warm ; but 

 before noon they had another tree down, 



size of a stove-pipe. One colony was in 

 a pump-tube 4x6 inches, and 3 feet long. 

 Nearly every gum was fastened to a 

 tree by baling-wire, as security against 

 a freshet. They had one dry-goods box 

 about 4x4x6 feet, into which they threw 

 11 swarms last year. They had in 

 plenty of cross sticks, and were intend- 

 ing to have it filled with combs. I have 

 not heard from them this summer. 



George Mott, M. D. 

 Spurger, Tex., Sept. 12, 1892. 



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