THE PASTORAL LEES. 71 



A- swarm in May is indeed a treasure ; it is, like an 

 April baby, sure to thrive, and will very likely itself 

 send out a swarm a month or two later ; but a swarm 

 in July is not to be despised ; it will store no clover 

 or linden honey for the "grand seignior and the ladies 

 of his seraglio," but plenty of the rank and wholesome 

 poor man's nectar, the sun-tanned product of the | 

 beian buckwheat. Buckwheat honey is the black 

 sheep in this white flock, but there is spirit and 

 character in it. It lays hold of the taste in no 

 equivocal manner, especially when at a winter break- 

 fast it meets its fellow, the russet buckwheat cake. 

 Bread with honey to cover it from the same stalk 

 is double good fortune. It is not black, either, but 

 nut-brown, and belongs to the same class of goods 

 as Herrick's 



"Nut-brown mirth and russet wit." 



How the bees love it, and they bring the delicious 

 odor of the blooming plant to the hive with them, 

 so that in the moist warm twilight the apiary is 

 redolent with the perfume of buckwheat. 



Yet evidently it is not the perfume of any flower 

 that attracts the bees ; they pay no attention to the 

 sweet-scented lilac, or to heliotrope, but work upon 

 sumach, silkweed, and the hateful snapdragon. Iut 

 September they are hard pressed, and do well if they 

 pick up enough sweet to pay the running expen 

 of their establishment. The purple asters and th' 

 golden-rod are about all that remain to them. 



Bees will go three or four miles in quest of honey, 

 but it is a great advantage to move the hive n< v 

 the good pasturage, as has been the custom from the 

 earliest times in the Old World. Some enterprising 

 person, taking a hint perhaps from the ancient Egyp- 



