THE HIVE AND HONEY-BEE. 
2l>6 
by fiost in Winter. It also yields a heavier second crop than the 
common white clover.” 
The blossoms of buckwheat often furnish, late in tht 
season, a very valuable bee-food.* 
Buckwheat is uncertainf in its honey-vielding qualities, 
and, in some seasons, hardly a bee will be seen upon large 
fields of it. Our best agriculturists are agreed that, on 
many soils, it is a very profitable crop, and every Apiary 
ought to have some in its vicinity.J 
The Canada thistle yields copious 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, whilo 
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 
* This honey is usually gathered when the atmosphere is moist, and in wet sea¬ 
sons, is somewhat liable to sour in the cells. Iloney gathered when the atmosphere 
Is dry is usually of the thickest consistency. 
t The secretion of honey in plants, like the flow of the sap from the sugar-maple, 
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 clovor. A change 
in the secretion of honey will often tako place so suddenly, that the bees will, in a 
few hours, pass from Idleness to great activity. 
X Dzierzon says: M In the stubble of Winter grain, buckwheat might bo sown, 
whereby ample forage would be secured to the bees, late in the season, and a remune¬ 
rating crop of grain garnered besides. This plant, growing so rapidly and maturing 
so soon, so productive in favorable seasons, and so well adapted to cleanse the land, 
certainly deserves more attention from furmers than it receives; and its more 
frequent and general culture would greatly enhance the profits of bee-keeping. Its 
long-continued and frequently-renewed blossoms yield honey so abundantly, that 
a populous colony may easily collect fifty pounds in two weeks, if the weather is 
fhvorable." 
