tions
six or eight weeks is about all the time they have to provide for
winter.

GARDEN FLOWERS UNIMPORTANT.

In passing along I have not mentioned garden flowers, because the
amount obtained here is a small item, compared to the forest and
fields--especially ornamental flowers. It is true that the Hollyhock,
(_Altha Rosea_,) Mallows, (_Malva Rotundifolia_) and many others yield
honey, but what does it amount to? A person expecting his hives to be
filled from such a source would very likely be disappointed, especially
when many are kept together.

HONEY-DEW.

Honey-dew is said to be a source from whence large collections are made
in some places. When or where it appears or disappears is more than I
can tell. I have seen the accounts of it, but accounts I have learned
to doubt until I find something corroborative in my own experience. I
find too many errors copied merely because they happen to be in company
with several truths. Huber discovered many important truths, and has
given them to the world; too many writers take it for granted when two
points of his are true, the third _must be also_. It is no proof that
there is no such article merely because I never discovered it. In the
many fruitless endeavors that I have made to get a view of this
substance, it may be I have lacked close observation; or possibly there
is none showered upon this region; or I may have failed to bring my
imagination to assist me to convert common dew into the real article.

SINGULAR SECRETION.

I once discovered bees collecting a secretion unconnected with flowers;
but was not honey-dew, as it has been described. I was passing a bush
of Witch-hazel, (_Hamamelis Virginiana_,) and was arrested by an
unusual humming of bees. At first I supposed that a swarm was about me,
yet it was late in the season, (it being about the 25th July.) On close
inspection, I found the bush contained numerous warty excrescences, the
size and shape of a hickory-nut. These proved to be only a shell--the
inside lined with thousands of minute insects, a species of aphis.
These appeared to be engaged sucking the juices, and discharging a
clear, transparent fluid. Near the stem was an orifice about an eighth
of an inch in diameter, out of which this liquid would gradually exude.
So eager were the bees for this secretion, that several would crowd
around one orifice at a time, each endeavoring to thrust the other
away. This occurred several years ago, and I nev