> From:    Doug Schlichting <[log in to unmask]>
> Did the bees work your buckwheat well?  I bought a pound of
buckwheat seed =
> (black although not a particular variety) this spring from a
nursury in =
> Maine and planted a patch in my garden.  It grew and bloomed
nicely all =
> through the summer (it reseeds readily if not gathered
promptly) but I =
> only saw one or two honeybees on it throughout the whole
season.  Even =
> bumble bees ingnored it.  Buckwheat nectaries are supposed to
be active =
> only in the morning and I looked at all times of the day.

In July of 1999 a friend and I went to Brittany (France) to talk
to professional meadmakers
about their methods of making mead. They all also happened to be
large commercial beekeepers.
One 84 year-old gentleman, Gil Barbe', told us that they could no
longer find French buckwheat
honey and had to purchase it from Canada and China. He said that
the new varieties of buckwheat
had been bred to reduce the amount of nectar that the plant
produced to the point that the bees
would no longer work it. Sounds like you got some of the new
variety.

Chuck Wettergreen
beekeeper
meadmaker
and now mead vinegar too!
Geneva, IL

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