206 
THE HIVE AND HONEY-BEE. 
by fiost in Winter. It also yields a heavier second crop than the 
common white clover.” 
The blossoms of buckwheat often furnish, late in the 
season, a very valuable bee-food.* 
Buckwheat is uncertainf in its honey-yielding qualities, 
and, in some seasons, hardly a bee will be seen upon large 
fields of it. Our best agriculturists are agreed that, ou 
many soils, it is a very profitable crop, and every Ajtiary 
ought to have some in its vicinity-J 
The Canada thistle yields coimous supplies of very pure 
honey, after the white clover has begun to fail. If 
farmers will tolerate its growth, it is interesting to know 
that it can be turned to so good an account. 
The raspberry furnishes a most delicious honey. In 
flavor it is superior to that from the white clover, while 
its delicate comb almost melts in the mouth. The sides 
of the roads, the borders of the fields, and the pastures of 
much of the “hill-country” of New England, abound 
with the wild red raspberry, and, in such favored loca¬ 
tions, numerous colonies of bees may be kept. When it 
is in blossom, bees hold even the white clover in light 
* Tills honey is usually gathered when the atmosphere is moists and in wet sea* 
•ons, is somewhat liable to sour In the cells. Honey gathered when the atmosplu re 
is dry Is usually of the thickest consistency. 
t The secretion of honey in plants, like the flow of the sap f^om the sugar-muplc, 
depends on a variety of causes, many of which elude our closest scrutiny. In 
some seasons the saccharine juices abound, while in others they are so deficient 
that bees can obtain scarcely any food from fields all white with clover. A change 
in the secretion of honey will often take place so suddenly, that the bees will, in a 
few hours, pass from Idleness to great activity. 
X Dzlerzon says: “In the stubble of Winter grain, buckwheat might be sown, 
whereby ample forage would be secured to the bees, late In the season, and a romune* 
rating crop of grain garnered besides. This plant, growing so rapidly and inatming 
so soon, so productive In favorable seasons, and so well adapted to cleanse the laml, 
certainly deserves more attention from farmers than it receives; and its morn 
frequent and general culture would greatly enhance the profits of beo»keoplng. Its 
long-continued and frequontly-renowod blossoms yield honey so abundantly, that 
a populous colony may easily collect fifty poiimls in two weeks, if the weather is 
favorable.” 
