the northern zone,” says E. G. Carr in the American Bee Journal, “that there is scarcely a time from June first until frost that the bees do not get more than a living.” In the spring pollen and nectar are gathered from the maples, dandelion, and fruit bloom. A surplus is gathered from white clover, alsike clover, white and yellow sweet clover, buckwheat, goldenrod, and aster. Should one or more of these plants fail to yield, there is still an opportunity to get a profitable crop. Notwithstanding poor wintering and uncontrolled swarming, good crops are secured.

There are two pronounced honey flows, the earlier coming from the clovers, the later from buckwheat, goldenrod, and aster. As New York and Philadelphia offer good markets for milk, a large number of New Jersey farmers are engaged in dairying and have largely planted alsike clover. In Morris and Hunterdon counties sweet clover is a valuable honey plant. Present indications are that its cultivation will steadily increase. In the hilly areas a good flow of nectar in favorable seasons may be expected from buckwheat, of which there are 8000 acres in the state. The largest number of beekeepers is found in the northern part of the state, but the apiaries are usually small. Sussex, Hunterdon, Morris, and Warren counties, writes E. G. Carr, offer the best opportunities for beekeeping, although the agricultural counties possess many advantages. In Sussex County, where an abundance of buckwheat is grown in the Delaware Valley, there is a great and unoccupied field. In Hunterdon County, although it contains the largest number of colonies of bees and of beekeepers, there is also much good territory. As the winters are mild in the larger part of New Jersey and much of the territory is understocked, beekeeping as a side line might be profitably pursued more extensively than at present.

In the northeastern comer of the state, in Hudson County, suburban to New York, and in parts of Bergen, Passaic, Essex, and Middlesex counties, there is no early source of honey. Much of the land is lying idle, and is every year becoming more densely covered with goldenrods and asters. The goldenrods, which are very abundant in Middlesex County, begin yielding nectar about the first of September. If the weather is favorable a beekeeper may secure from it a surplus of one hundred pounds. The asters continue to bloom until they are killed by frost. Heartsease is also to a limited extent a dependable source of nectar. At Lyndhurst the apiaries range from 10 to 15 colonies.

“There is on file in the Department of Agriculture a list of three thousand names of persons in the state who keep bees. From inspection records and statistics it is estimated that there are approximately thirty thousand colonies of bees in the state. The local demand for honey is such that the greater part of the production of these colonies is consumed within a few miles of the point of production. More than this, tons of honey are brought into the state for home use.”

DELAWARE

Delaware, which, with the exception of Rhode Island, is the smallest state in the Union, has a total area of 2370 square miles. The larger portion of its surface is a low sandy plain bordered on the southeast by wide marshes along Delaware Bay and the ocean, but becoming hilly in the extreme north. On the southern boundary, extending into Maryland, there is a great cypress swamp covering 50,000 acres.

Delaware is an agricultural state; and beekeeping, which is pursued chiefly as a side line, offers few inducements to the specialist. The production of honey is largely dependent on white clover, alsike clover, fruit trees, berry bushes, vegetables, and buckwheat. Approximately the same results are obtained both in the northern and central sections. White clover and alsike clovers are best adapted to