FOURTEENTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART IX. 659 



Now, for the results. 



I have not kept a record of my out apiaries for the reason they 

 are changed about more or less each year, but the home apiary like 

 one of our family is always present, and, of course, it receives the 

 best care and attention and the record is this: 



From the home apiary and one out apiary in 1910, 100 colonies run 

 fOT comb honey, my crop was 8,000 finished sections and 3,600 pounds 

 extracted honey, an average of 80 sections and 36 pounds extracted 

 honey per colony. 



Figuring the average wholesale price for the last five years for comb 

 honey at 15 cents, which is low, and 10 cents per pound for extracted, 

 which is less than I actually received. 



My average income from each colony that year was $15.60 with in- 

 crease of seven swarms. 



1911 in my locality was a dismal failure. The only season in the 

 thirty-five years I have kept bees in Iowa wihen they gathered no 

 surplus. 



While this was a misfortune, the winter of 1910 and 1911 was a 

 calamity. 



I am going to confess I lost that winter almost 90 per cent of my 

 bees, not because they starved, but on account of the poor stores they 

 were obliged to consume. 



We can't winter bees in Iowa on bug juice and cider. 



Had I taken these stores from them and fed granulated sugar syrup 

 enough to have carried them through the winter, returning their stores 

 after setting them out in the spring, they would have returned me 

 during the years 1912 and 1913 500 per cent on the investment for 

 sugar, but sugar was i?8.00 per (hundred that fall, and I did not have 

 a particle of bee fever in my system. 



1912 from twelve colonies in my home yard, I produced an average 

 of ninety sections and twelve pounds extracted honey, an. average of 

 $14.50 per colony, and increased to forty colonies, or 233 per cent 

 increase. 



1913 my average from forty colonies in the home yard, was 127 

 sections and 25 pounds extract, an average income from each colony 

 of a little over $22.15, and my increase was 42, being a trifle over 100 

 per cent. 



These bees received my best care and attention to such an extent 

 that while they were all grouped together in the home apiary, during 

 the month of May, at the close of the season they were in three different 

 yards of thirty-five, twenty-five and twenty-two colonies, tlhereby giving 

 them the advantage of pasturage. 



And another thing, drouth prevailed during the entire season as the 

 record of our weather observer will show. 

 Let me give you the rainfall for the season: 



June ". 1.18 inches 



July 1.80 inches 



August 1.65 inches 



It seemed wonderful to be where the bees found this nectar after the 

 first of July. 



