Bill,

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.

If anyone has buckwheat seed or knows of a mail-order source for buckwheat that bees will actually work, I'd certainly appreciate the info.

Waldemar Galka
Long Island, NY

Mike wrote:
>      I was perusing the BEE-L archives for sources and varieties of
> buckwheat to plant next spring as a honey source and came up with very
> little info.

I grew it for what it does really well and that is ground cover and
picked the ones that seeded best so I could have seed to plant the next
year. That was some ten years ago and forget the variety. It can
recapture a field that is weed prone and when plowed under helps a bit
to restore it and did that well.

My guess is whatever you plant will give you what you want. I doubt if
there is much difference in taste since it a small family. So I would go
for the variety that best suits your other needs, such as germination,
seeds and the like. (Which, in a place like Maine, is my starting
criteria.) And I would look up a local farm store and buy it from them
since that seed is usually best for the area. (Which is what I did, and
it was.)

The honey was not something I would rave about so I ended up with a lot
of buckwheat seed after the first year and never bothered with it again.

Bill Truesdell (who has never made buckwheat vinegar)
Bath, Maine

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