150 
BUCKWHEAT 
Japanese buckwheat 34 inches high in a little over three weeks from the time the seed was planted. 
of buckwheat, and yet the value of the 
services of the honeybee in pollinating this 
great expanse of bloom is almost wholly 
unknown. The buckwheat-growers and bee¬ 
keepers of New York are mutually depend¬ 
ent. 
BUCKWHEAT AS A HONEY PLANT. 
Buckwheat can he cultivated thruout the 
North Temperate Zone. It is extensively 
grown in Asia, especially in Japan, and 
is also widely cultivated in Europe. An 
immense quantity of buckwheat honey is 
gathered in Russia. In North America, 
while it is grown to some extent in Canada, 
it is chiefly valuable for grain in the 
United States. It is best adapted to New 
York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wis¬ 
consin, and New England; and to the 
mountainous sections of Maryland, West 
Virginia, Kentucky, North Carolina, and 
Tennessee. About two-thirds of the crop 
is now raised in New York and Pennsyl¬ 
vania. In 1899 about 2,000,000 farms re¬ 
ported an average acreage of four acres 
each. 
In New York and Pennsylvania there 
are thousands of acres of buckwheat with¬ 
in a radius of a few miles. On one hilltop 
in Schoharie County, N. Y., the bees were 
reported a few years ago to have access 
within a radios of three miles to 5,000 
acres of buckwheat, all of which was with¬ 
in range of the eye. So great is the 
acreage of it in New York that from 
2,000 to 3,000 colonies can be kept in some 
counties, and immense quantities of buck¬ 
wheat honey are stored annually. There 
are hundreds of farmers who keep a few 
colonies in order that they may get the 
honey as well as the grain. One may ride 
for an entire day thruout the buckwheat 
region of this State without losing sight 
of the buckwheat fields. So immense is the 
area of bloom that the atmosphere is heav¬ 
ily charged with its odor. 
One beekeeper in the heart of the buck¬ 
wheat country, who lived near Cayuga 
Lake, harvested one year with 1,000 colo¬ 
nies 78,000 pounds of honey; another year 
50,000 pounds; for many years his crops, 
obtained chiefly from buckwheat, have been 
in carloads. E. W. Alexander of Delan- 
son, N. Y., also produced immense quanti¬ 
ties of this honey. His apiary consisted 
of 700 colonies, and from the top of the 
hill, where it was located, there Avere in 
sight 1,500 acres of buckwheat. Nowhere 
does buckwheat thrive better than on the 
hillsides of eastern New York, nor are the 
climate and the soil elsewhere more favor¬ 
able to a luxuriant growth. 
The flowers of buckwheat secrete nectar 
only in the morning; toward noon the 
flow lessens and ceases entirely during the 
afternoon, but begins again vigorously the 
next morning. The visits of the bees quick¬ 
ly decrease in number until they cease 
almost entirely, and they remain idle about 
the hives for the balance of the day. Thus 
in the afternoon, notwithstanding the great 
expanse of bloom and its strong fragrance, 
