1918 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



261 



turned to the city of Fargo, late in 

 the evening, through the swamps, the 

 brush and the sand. 



The next morning I had the pleas- 

 ure of visiting the Suwanee River, a 

 wilderness stream, looking like a 

 creek, there, only a few miles from 

 its head, but which I am told widens 

 into an immense river near its 

 mouth, traveling through swamps 

 most of the way. Along this stream, 

 besides the tupelo gum is found the 

 chincapin, castanea pumila, whose 

 flowers produce very dark, inferior 

 honey, but Mr. Wilder, who has a 

 number of apiaries on the lower 

 Suwanee, uses this honey for feed- 

 ing. 



In all these southern, flat, pine 

 timber lands, the principal business 

 of a town is turpentine and lumber. 

 The sawmill is the life of Fargo, for 

 Fargo is no exception to the rule. 

 On the day I was there the town was 

 in a flurry, for the Mill Company had 

 gone into bankruptcy two months 

 before and on that day the mill was 

 sold at auction, with all that be- 

 longed to it. This included three- 

 fourths of the houses and the hotel. 

 It was sold in a lump to one party, 

 and the old lady who kept the hotel 

 wondered whether they would close 

 the mill and turn her out of the ho- 

 tel, which she had kept for a number 

 of years. She was very talkative, 

 and said to me : "I hope they will 

 keep the business going until the war 

 is over, for if they do not, I will 

 starve." 



The next day I went to Cordele. 

 where more apiaries were to be vis- 

 ited by me. Beekeepers in the north 

 who have wondered whether Mr. 

 Wilder did not overstate when he 

 wrote of his hundreds of apiaries, 

 need not be in doubt, for he has 

 apiaries all over the south, with re- 

 liable men in charge. Mr. F. T. 

 Branch, the man with whom I visited 

 the bees around Cordele, has charge 

 of 20 apiaries, some 1,200 colonies, 

 and these are, like the ones in south- 

 ern Georgia, located in the brush. 



Is the South, therefore a reliable 

 country for beekeepers, and would 

 it be profitable for a northern bee- 

 keeper to move there? My answer 

 is in the negative. The Wilder 

 method is certainly good. Many api- 

 aries, scattered over immense spaces, 

 in charge of reliable men who know 

 the resources of the country and can 

 make a profitable season out of a 

 small per-colony yield, bring results. 

 But the drawbacks are numerous. 

 Difficulties of travel, swamps, white 

 sand, unimproved soil. The negroes 

 seem to delight in building forest 

 fires, without any very plain pur- 

 pose, for after the land is cleared 

 it is probably less valuable than 

 when it had still a growth of young 

 pitch pines. It looked very much as 

 if they only wished to see the big 

 blaze during the cool spring nights. 

 These fires are very damaging to the 

 apiarists, for they not only endanger 

 the hives, but also destroy the im- 

 mediate expectation of a crop from 

 palmetto or gallberry or other low 

 shrubbery. The only safe honey- 

 producing trees after a forest fire are 

 the tupelo gums, which grow with 



The Tupelo Gum of the South 



their foot in the water like the cy- 

 press. 



Each country has its special re- 

 sources, its methods, and it is de- 

 lightful to go from one region to an- 

 other and see the different crops, 

 from different soils and entirely dif- 

 ferent sources. But if you have a 

 good location, do not seek a change. 

 Wherever you go you will find diffi- 

 culties to overcome and you must re- 

 member that "a rolling stone gathers 

 no moss." 



How Far Bees Will Go for 

 Honey 



By L. B. Smith 



IF I am not mistaken (I haven't 

 time to look up the files of the 

 American Bee Journal that I 

 have) I subscribed for this journal in 

 the fall of 1881, while the late Thomas 

 G. Newman was editor. I have been 

 a constant reader of it ever since, 

 with the exception of one year. I 

 have read, and written more or less 

 about bees in nearly all the bee- 

 papers published in the United States 



and some that were published in 

 other countries. I have been a close 

 student of apiculture all my life. 

 With this introduction to the read- 

 ers of the American Bee Journal, I 

 shall take up my subject of the dis- 

 tance bees will travel, or fly, for 

 honey. 



In the spring of 1882 I purchased 

 my first yellow-banded bees — Italians 

 and Cyprians. People came for miles 

 to see those bees, as they were quite 

 a novelty then. At that time I lived 

 in what was known as the "cross 

 timbers" of Johnson County. Not 

 many bees were kept, and my yellow 

 bees were the first of that color that 

 had been brought into the country. 

 The location was a poor one; all 

 other bees in the community were 

 either black or brown in color, and 

 were as much alike as two black- 

 eyed peas, as the expression is some- 

 times used. But to get to my point, 

 it was not infrequently that I saw 

 those yellow bees of mine four and 

 five miles out from home, busily en- 

 gaged in gathering nectar from 

 horse-mint, wild marigold and other 

 plants in season. At that time I was 



