ALEXANDER'S WRITINGS ON PRACTICAL BEE CULTURE 11 



within two or three miles of them. Still, we have had about an average 

 season. The largest yield we have ever had was 149% lbs. per colony, 

 spring count. That was an exceptionally good year. This year, since 

 weighing up our honey, we find, we have 141^^ lbs. per colony, spring 

 count, or a total yield of a little over 70,700 lbs. extracted honey from this 

 one yard, including 80 sections of comb honey. In addition we have had 

 3,600 sheets of foundation drawn out into nice extractlng-combs. 



To me the success of this large apiary this ordinary season goes a 

 long way to show that I am not so much in the wrong in regard to over- 

 stocking as some people think, and I am sure I should have to have more 

 than 1,000 colonies before I would go to the trouble of putting any in 

 outyards away from home. 



November, 1904. 



BUCKWHEAT AS A HONEY-PBODUCEB. 



During the time that buckwheat is in bloom, many other honey- 

 producing flowers are also secreting nectar, principally goldenrod, which 

 yields a dark honey resembling buckwheat very much, and with us is a 

 better honey-producer than buckwheat. 



Several years ago I kept nearly 200 colonies in a location where 

 there was barely 100 acres of buckwheat within reach of my bees — that 

 is, within four miles, or in a circle eight miles in diameter. Still, with 

 this small acreage per colony it was no uncommon thing to harvest a 

 surplus of 15 to 20 lbs. of nice buckwheat section honey per colony. 

 This caused me to feel very anxious to keep bees in a buckwheat loca- 

 tion where thousands of acres was raised annually, so I moved to this 

 place. But I soon found out, to my sorrow, that the amount of bloom 

 had but little bearing on the amount of surplus I obtained, and in this 

 respect buckwheat is no exception to other flowers, aside from the fact 

 that it does its best when we have quite cool nights followed by a clear 

 sky and a bright hot sun with little or no wind; then from about 9 

 o'clock in the morning until 2 in the afternoon it secretes nectar very 

 fast. We seldom find a bee at work on it much earlier or later in the 

 day. But on goldenrod they will work from seven in the morning until 

 after 5 in the afternoon. It also requires quite cool nights and a very 

 bright sun during the day. Neither it nor buckwheat amounts to much 

 in cloudy weather, even if the day is warm. With a temperature below 

 70 degrees on a cloudy day, bees will waste away fast on either golden- 

 rod or buckwheat. They simply crawl around, unable to fly; and unless 

 they get a bright sun the next day they soon die. 



This question has a close bearing on the subject of overstocking, 

 and it is hard to answer it without touching somewhat on that question. 

 From the reports given in our bee journals the past season, during the 

 commencement of the clover bloom in several of our Western States, 

 I noticed that it was all that could be desired; but as to the yield of 

 honey, It has been in many places almost a failure, and we have re- 

 ceived many letters of Inquiry for clover extracted honey from some of 

 the best clover sections of the United States. The writers of these in- 



