Omaha daily bee., 1888-05-14
Honey in Georpia.

After dinner at Mr.. Mitchell's, says
the Griffin (Ga.) News, we were sitting
on his front piazza, smoking, and | dis
covered some bees going in and out of a
knot in n of the large oak trees in
front of his dwelling. This tree is
known to be over one hundred years
old l learned that some years ago a
swarm of bees assembled in that tree as
their new home, and they have worked
and lived there over since. After they
had been there for three years the col
ony became very large and strong, and
no attempt had YER been made to rob
them of their honey. At last Mr..
Mitchell came to the conclusion that
the tree must be full of honey, from
seeing large numbers OF flies and
bees around the root Of the tree; so he
set to work to devise some means to get
the honey without cutting the tree
down. After applying all the tests
known to bee men he satisfied himself
that the tree was full, and then decided
to tap it like q fellow is tapped for
dropsy. So he got him a faucet and an
augur and bored a hole in the tree near
the root, and then screwed in the fau-
Get, and to his surprise and great de-
light a solid stream of pure and elegant
honey as clear as crystal gushed forth,
and the supply seemed almost inexhaus-
tible. 1t continued to pour out until he
had filed six barrels; and he has drawn
each year since that time from three to
four barrels of pure strained honey
from that old oak tree, and up to this
time there seems to be no signs of a
failure of the supply, as the bees are
still a very strong and healthy colony.
The same year that Mr.. Mitchell
tapped the old oak tree there was a new
thick growth sprunk up all around the
old oak of an unusual appearance, hav-
leaves. One day he pulled off one of
the leaves aud put it in his mouth and
found it to be very sweet, and upon ex-
animation of the place from which he
had plucked the leaf he discovered that
the plant was bleeding or emitting from
the wound a clear, th~ick-looking juice,
which, upon tasting and examination,
proved to be honey. He hen COM
menced to nurse the new volunteer
growths with the tenderest care and at
tention, looking after them daily;
and as the summer adj
vanced the plants continued to
transplanted 800 of them in very rich
soil, thirty feet apart, and they grew
very rapidly, making a beautiful dis
play with their straight, smooth trunks
and their thick and glossy wax-like
leaves. And the grove was seer and
admired by all for miles and miles
around. Mr.. Mitchell's idea was that,
as large money was made from the
sugar maple by boiling the juice, he
ought to make more from a tree that
would run pure honey, and he was
right. When the trees were four years
old, in the fall Of the year, they were
large enough to insert faucets. So
he had 300 faucets made to order and
screwed them into the young trees, and
the following spring the result was re-
markable.. Each tree yielded an aver
age Of ten gallons of the richest golden
honey; the following year each tree
yielded an average of twenty gallons,
and now the average is about a barrel
to each tree during the year, and the
grove continues to grow and flourish
and shows no signs of failing to supply
in the years to come. The quality of
the honey is so fine and the flavor so
delicate that it always commands the
highest prices, and the demand is
greater han the supply.