The city of Washington is an example of this, bees located here
doing better during the spring and summer months than those in the
surrounding country, owing to the bee pasturage found in the numerous
gardens and parks and the nectar-yielding shade trees along the
streets. This is due mainly to the fact that the linden, or basswood,
which is rarely seen in the country about Washington, has been planted
extensively in the parks and for miles on both sides of many of the
streets and avenues of the city.[A] Another source in the city not
found extensively in the country adjacent is melilot, Bokhara or
sweet clover (_Melilotus alba_), which has crept into vacant lots and
neglected corners, and diffuses its agreeable perfume to the delight of
all city dwellers, whether human or insect. The writer has practiced
with profit the transportation of nearly a hundred colonies from a
country apiary 10 miles distant to Washington for the linden and sweet
clover yield. He has also seen a prosperous apiary kept on the roof
of a business house in the heart of New York City, and on several
occasions has visited another apiary of 30 to 40 colonies, which a
skillful apiarist had located on the roof of his store in the business
portion of Cincinnati, Ohio, and from which 30 to 40 pounds of honey
per colony were usually obtained each year.
[A] Several species of lindens are included in these plantings, but
none yields more than our common American linden, or basswood (_Tilia
americana_).
Another apiary personally inspected was located directly on the sand
banks forming the eastern shore of Lake Michigan. These bees were, of
course, unable to forage westward from the apiary, hence had but half
"a field." The soil of the area over which the bees ranged was a light
sand, unproductive for most crops, and the region was little developed
agriculturally, most of the honey coming from forest trees and from
shrubs and wild plants growing in old burnings and windfalls, yet 25 to
30 pounds of excellent honey per colony was the usual surplus obtained.
At one time the writer had an apiary in the city of Detroit, Mich.,
where the wide river on one side cut off nearly half of the pasturage,
yet the bees did will. And again for several years he had an apiary
containing from 100 to 200 colonies of bees on a very sterile coast
of the Island of Cyprus, and another nearly as large located but a
few rods from the seashore on a rocky point of Syria. Both of these
apiaries were devoted in the main to queen rearing, yet the yield of
honey was not an unimportant item, especially in the Syrian apiary,
while in the Cyprus apiary some honey was frequently taken, and it was
rarely necessary to feed the bees for stores. In the latter case about
one-fourth of the range was out off by the sea, the bees being located
at the head of an open bay and a short distance from the shore, while
the location of the Syrian apiary prevented the bees from securing
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