FALL FLO WERS. 1 1 3 



Buckwheat rapidly opened until great fields of 

 white lay all around us, and the air was densely 

 laden with its heavy perfume. It yielded honey 

 most bountifully, as buckwheat often does in favor- 

 able years , though sometimes it gives scarcely any. 

 The hives were not yet so full of bees as they had 

 been before the new swarms were made, but the 

 brood was rapidly hatching in every one of them. 

 The buckwheat yielded so profusely that they 

 seemed to gather honey as fast as during linn bloom. 

 September 2nd, twelve days after putting on the 

 supers, they were full enough to begin extracting. 

 That day I extracted from twenty hives, aud kept 

 taking twenty a day until all were done. I got an 

 average of fifty-seven pounds per colony, — 5529 

 pounds from the ninety-seven swarms. 



Bees could have had no better pasturage. In 

 addition to the buckwheat there was now a very 

 large quantity of heartsease, a plant resembling 

 smartweed, and often called by that name ; but it 

 is not smartweed, as anyone can tell by tasting the 

 leaves. The leaves of smartweed have a very pun- 

 gent, acrid taste ; but the leaves of heartsease are 

 nearly tasteless. From smartweed no honey is 

 gathered, but heartsease is one of the best honey 

 plants. It grew all around me, in every cultivated 

 field, by road-sides, and along fences and streams. 

 Then the swamps and borders of the woods were 



