Subject: Re: Buckwheat question from Australia

From: [email-masked] (Pollinator)
Date: 1 Jul 1995 02:45:50 -0400

In article <[email-masked]>, [email-masked]
writes:

>Date: Tue, 27 Jun 1995 17:43:23 +0000
>From: Chris Bluett <[email-masked]>
>Subject: Bees on Buckwheat
>
>Can anybody help me with the yield increases that might come from
>putting bee hives on buckwheat fields? Or the yield penalties that
>might arise from having no bees working the crops?
>
>Also, is it true that buckwheat is very good for bee colonies but
>that the honey is not very good?

   I grew up on buckwheat honey.  It is dark and fairly strong tasting, so
some don't like it, but I think it is one of the best honeys there are.

   The old varieties that used to be grown in the 1940's and 50's used to
yield tremdous amounts of honey.  Some beekeepers were getting 2-300 lbs
per hive for the season, with a majority of it being buckwheat.  Then came
a reduction in planting, and new hybrid varities, and now buckwheat honey
is very hard to come by.

   In recent years I have placed bees on buckwheat and they worked it
extensively, but did not make much.  A friend of mine found about 60# of
new dark honey on each of his hives last year, went looking and found a
buckwheat field about a quarter mile away.  So it is quite variable.

   Buckwheat seems to yield more on poor, acid soil than on sweet soils.

   The buckwheat flow is early in the day, and it shuts off suddenly in
the afternoon.  You don't want to work the bees in the afternoon, as they
will punish you for the shutoff!

   Buckwheat growers today seek out beekeepers, so they feel they are
getting pollination benefit.  As far as I know, no one is charging for
contract pollinating it.

   There is a wild relative of buckwheat that grows in the northeast,
especially along the Susquehenna river (called Japanese Bamboo), that
yield a very fine honey that is like a mild flavored buckwheat.

   Hope this helps.