FOURTEENTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART IX. 649 



Start from the Missouri river on over west and travel east to the 

 Atlantic Ocean, over the white clover belt, and the farther east you go 

 the lower the average temperature, especially nights. 



And let me say to you the higher the temperature and dryer the 

 climate the thicker will be the nectar as it is gathered from the flowers, 

 and the less the bees will be obliged to reduce it. 



For this reason the more flavor it will have, and the thicker or riper 

 the honey the longer it will retain that flavor. 



In proof of this go out in your apiary any still evening when your 

 bees are gathering honey and if you are an experienced beekeeper you 

 can tell from what source they are gathering honey, from the aroma that 

 pervades the atmosphere. 



Our late Bro. Alexander of New York state artificially ripened his 

 buckwheat honey, and during the process of ripening he reduced that 

 strong metallic buckwheat flavor, making it more palatable to the average 

 consumer, but with our white clover honey we should strive to retain 

 as much of that delicate clover flavor as possible. 



For this reason I seal my extract honey in jars as fast as I extract, 

 or after it has stood in the settling tank from 12 to 24 hours, and I never 

 allow my comb honey to be exposed to the atmosphere for any length 

 of time. 



I want to say to you, that I consider it the duty of the Iowa Beekeepers 

 Association to establish a brand or trade mark and have the same reg- 

 istered for our Iowa white clover honey. 



If eacih producer or member of this organization will use this trade 

 mark on the labels of all of this class of honey he sells, it will in a short 

 time materially increase the price of our honey. 



I don't know as it would increase our sales to any great extent for it 

 is an easy matter to dispose of a crop of this kind of honey now. 



I never produced a crop of clover honey so large that I was not able 

 to sell it at a fairly satisfactory price, except one year in the 35 years 

 I have kept bees in this state. 



That year, 1910, while the price w^as as high as other years, I carried 

 over to 1911 about 50 cases of comb honey, which I sold to my customers 

 during the fall of 1911, for 15 cents per case more than the same grade 

 sold for the year before, being a fair interest on the money and another 

 demonstration of the quality of our Iowa white clover honey. 



In the western part of the state we have some years a flow of honey 

 in August from heartsease. 



This honey, while the color is good, has a strong, and, to me, rather 

 disagreeable flavor. 



For this reason I turn my comb supers crossways so the air can cir- 

 culate through them, and my extract honey I allow to stand in the 

 settling tank for at least 30 days. 



In the meantime I send to Wisconsin and buy a few cases of basswood 

 honey and blend it with this heartsease, making a fairly good article. 



Now there is one more honey flow I want to call your attention to, and 

 that is from dandelion, during the month of May. 



The first blossoms appear about the 25th of April, or at the same time 

 as the first early fruit blossoms, and it continues to bloom if the weather 

 is favorable until fhe 1st of June, 



