MAY, 1917 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



349 



FROM THE FIELD OF EXPERIENCE 



iSum-ise Apiary un a suutht'a;>t slope ui tlif lieait ul' {\\v town of Iowa City. 



no small gain, especially when the harvest 

 is bountiful and lasting'. A colony left 

 with a failing queen might amount to al- 

 most nothing. Another gain by the change 

 of queen is the amount of honey that will 

 necessarily be removed from the brood- 

 chamber to the super. In most apiaries 

 there will be found an occasional colony that 

 has a queen which, unless rej^laced, will 

 lessen the crop. A. C. Gilbert. 



East Avon, N. Y, 



A Profitable City Apiary 



" Sunrise Apiary " appears at first glance 

 to be located in a forest. Instead, it is 

 less than four blocks from the business 

 section of a city of over ten thousand 

 l>eople. It standi on the terraced bluff 

 overlooking Ralston Creek, in Iowa City, 

 Iowa, facing the southeast. Mr. Eckbaring, 

 the proprietor, says that his bees can get 

 to work very early in the morning, and for 

 this reason he selected llie huation, and 

 the name suggested itself. 



The workshop at tlie top of the bluff' 

 houses the supplies and the honey. Supers 

 loaded with the fall flow of honey, to 



the amount of three or four Irundi'cd 

 pounds, stood on the floor at the time of 

 the writer's last visit, and the summer 

 flow was considerably greater. 



Each sujDer is numbered, and each queen 

 is registered, so that Mr. Eckbaring can 

 keep an accurate record of the production 

 of each queen. He caters to the local de- 

 mand, producing both comb and extracted 

 honey, the proportion running about half 

 comb and half extracted. He remarked 

 rather quizzically that, when he ran out of 

 comb honey, i^eople began to call for it; 

 and when he ran out of extracted honey, 

 the demand began to rise. He finds a 

 ready market for his entire production, 

 relying entirely on customers who come to 

 the apiai'y for it. He states that he makes 

 on the average $5.00 clear on each hive, 

 or thereabout, each year. 



White clover is the chief plant from 

 which the honey is produced — smartweed, 

 goldenrod, and even cockleburs furnish- 

 ing some honey also. Years ago, at River- 

 side, basswood was one of the principal 

 sources of honey; but the nearest trees to 

 Iowa City are at least ten miles -away, 

 and most of the basswood-trees have 

 been cut down. C. B. Isaac. 



Iowa City, Iowa. 



