Exira Sesquicentennial Special: Littlefield Apiaries
Yes, gentle reader, it is time once again to take a look back into the mists of history in honor of the 150th anniversary of my hometown, Exira, Iowa. Exira has suffered the fates of many small towns across the farm belt of the United States in that consolidation and corporatization have eliminated many small businesses, ones that kept dollars within the community instead of sending them to a corporate headquarters, stockholders or even overseas. Looking back at the 1957 Exira Centennial History Book, I am amazed at the diversity of enterprise within a town of what was then around 1000 people. Aside from three doctors, a veterinarian and a law firm, there were also two lumber yards, a jewelry store, a dry cleaner, a creamery, a theater, three implement companies, a hatchery, two hardware stores, three car dealerships, a skating rink, a locker, i.e. butcher, a newspaper, two appliance dealers and even an apiary, to name some of the town's businesses, all supporting and supported by the local farmers. It is the apiary that I will address in today's column, since it was also mentioned in a post a while back regarding Exira's entry in the 1938 WPA Guide to Iowa.
In my opinion, it is a real tragedy that small towns can no longer support this true diversity which allows them to thrive. Instead, today they count themselves "lucky" if they can bring in a big-box retailer such as a Wal-Mart to the edge of town, enticing the company with tax breaks so that some part-time and minimum wage jobs are brought in to the area, replacing these locally-owned Main Street businesses with the corporation. This is progress? And instead of supporting this kind of diversity, children in the school systems of small towns are taught that they have to leave town to be successful, a lie I and many others bought into, and that "diversity" requires acceptance of all races, creeds, sexual proclivities, religions, etc. The problem with this "feel good" diversity, in my opinion, is that it tries to make everybody "a winner" in a world in which there are real winners and losers. And it generally tries to knock the accomplishments of our white, Anglo-Saxon or Germanic heritage, equivocating the accomplishments of the men (yes, men) who built Western Civilization with the savages of the African bush, the nomads of the Levant or the Mongols of the steppe. Teach the young in these small towns across the Midwest to be proud to be a member of the race which built the Western World, and teach them that they can make a difference in their own local place and culture, instead of in the nowhere, generalized American pop culture promoted by the media and even the government.
Well, now I feel better. Let's take a look at Littlefield Apiaries, profiled in the Exira Centennial History Book of 1957.
Exira is fortunate to have the Littlefield Apiaries as one of its commercial enterprises. Honey has long been a favorite sweet. It is often mentioned in the Bible and in other works of even earlier times. Needless to say it was also a great favorite with our grandmothers, especially in the years when cane sugar was in the luxury class. And today honey continues to be a favorite spread for many people. The baking industry and many manufacturers of other products continue to use quantities of honey.
Among the early settlers coming to Audubon County was the Alonzo F. Littlefield family. This family settled on a farm near Exira in 1876. As most frugal folks of that time did, the Littlefields kept a few colonies of bees with which to supply honey for the family's use.
One of the sons in this family, Roy, as a boy took considerable interest in the bees and early began to take an active part in their care. As he grew older this interest increased, and when he had finished with his schooling here, he chose to go to Iowa State College at Ames, Iowa where he spent two profitable years. While there he chose Agricultural courses. Since those years he has taken a number of short courses in bee keeping and often attends Bee Keeper's meetings. All of these have helped to make Roy one of the successful bee keepers in Iowa, for he has thus been able to keep abreast of all the latest and best in his field of work.
The Littlefield Apiaries were established in 1920. There were very few commercial bee keepers at that time, so Roy became a pioneer in a growing industry. As so many beginners do, he began in a small way, having only five colonies of bees to work with. He says that there have been many changes in the nearly 40 years in which he has been actively engaged in the production of honey on a commercial basis.
Straining honey requires much equipment and considerable labor. Since 1933, Roy's sister, Ena Littlefield has been a partner and full time worker with him. They have things so well planned and arranged that with a minimum of help they are able to care for their honey crop.
Littlefield's own a tract of native timber where some of the bees spend the working months of the year. In addition to this many small years are established on the farms throughout the county and even beyond the county limits. These years are kept small for several reasons; they are of less bother to the farmer and his family and less apt to interfere in any way with work on the farm, and perhaps an even greater reason is that the bee finds its source of honey supply close at hand so that long flights are not necessary when gathering honey.
During the years since 1920 those first five colonies have grown to nearly 1,000 in number. The Littlefields have established their honey business in a large two story building on the lot at the rear of the house.
In the work of beekeeping, Roy has not only kept up with all of the newest and best in commercial beekeeping, but has improved on the standard equipment in use today, and has added many conveniences of his own devising.
About 15% of each year's honey crop is disposed of locally. Some of this goes to the farmers who have acted as hosts to colonies of bees during the producing season, and the balance is placed in local grocery stores or sold directly to Exirans who go to the honey house. The remainder of the crop goes to a large honey packer in Kansas City, Mo.
After Roy's death in the 1960's, he willed his honey timber to Iowa State, who then turned it over to Audubon County. It became Littlefield Park, now Littlefield Recreation Area, southeast of Exira, and is still enjoyed by the community.
It is a shame that such enterprises can no longer survive in small town Iowa. But who knows? Perhaps with the coming energy crisis, the thousand-mile supply lines of the global world will shrink and people will be forced to act locally. It is this writer's opinion that an apiary today could be an interesting enterprise when combined with a local meadery, producing the nectar of the gods which has been imbibed since time immemorial.
That is, of course, if the bees survive. I was quite shocked and saddened after reading this lovely essay in Salon. What is causing the bees to disappear? Is this the canary in the coal mine for our modern world? It is a scary proposition.
In my opinion, it is a real tragedy that small towns can no longer support this true diversity which allows them to thrive. Instead, today they count themselves "lucky" if they can bring in a big-box retailer such as a Wal-Mart to the edge of town, enticing the company with tax breaks so that some part-time and minimum wage jobs are brought in to the area, replacing these locally-owned Main Street businesses with the corporation. This is progress? And instead of supporting this kind of diversity, children in the school systems of small towns are taught that they have to leave town to be successful, a lie I and many others bought into, and that "diversity" requires acceptance of all races, creeds, sexual proclivities, religions, etc. The problem with this "feel good" diversity, in my opinion, is that it tries to make everybody "a winner" in a world in which there are real winners and losers. And it generally tries to knock the accomplishments of our white, Anglo-Saxon or Germanic heritage, equivocating the accomplishments of the men (yes, men) who built Western Civilization with the savages of the African bush, the nomads of the Levant or the Mongols of the steppe. Teach the young in these small towns across the Midwest to be proud to be a member of the race which built the Western World, and teach them that they can make a difference in their own local place and culture, instead of in the nowhere, generalized American pop culture promoted by the media and even the government.
Well, now I feel better. Let's take a look at Littlefield Apiaries, profiled in the Exira Centennial History Book of 1957.
Littlefield Apiaries
Exira is fortunate to have the Littlefield Apiaries as one of its commercial enterprises. Honey has long been a favorite sweet. It is often mentioned in the Bible and in other works of even earlier times. Needless to say it was also a great favorite with our grandmothers, especially in the years when cane sugar was in the luxury class. And today honey continues to be a favorite spread for many people. The baking industry and many manufacturers of other products continue to use quantities of honey.
Among the early settlers coming to Audubon County was the Alonzo F. Littlefield family. This family settled on a farm near Exira in 1876. As most frugal folks of that time did, the Littlefields kept a few colonies of bees with which to supply honey for the family's use.
One of the sons in this family, Roy, as a boy took considerable interest in the bees and early began to take an active part in their care. As he grew older this interest increased, and when he had finished with his schooling here, he chose to go to Iowa State College at Ames, Iowa where he spent two profitable years. While there he chose Agricultural courses. Since those years he has taken a number of short courses in bee keeping and often attends Bee Keeper's meetings. All of these have helped to make Roy one of the successful bee keepers in Iowa, for he has thus been able to keep abreast of all the latest and best in his field of work.
The Littlefield Apiaries were established in 1920. There were very few commercial bee keepers at that time, so Roy became a pioneer in a growing industry. As so many beginners do, he began in a small way, having only five colonies of bees to work with. He says that there have been many changes in the nearly 40 years in which he has been actively engaged in the production of honey on a commercial basis.
Straining honey requires much equipment and considerable labor. Since 1933, Roy's sister, Ena Littlefield has been a partner and full time worker with him. They have things so well planned and arranged that with a minimum of help they are able to care for their honey crop.
Littlefield's own a tract of native timber where some of the bees spend the working months of the year. In addition to this many small years are established on the farms throughout the county and even beyond the county limits. These years are kept small for several reasons; they are of less bother to the farmer and his family and less apt to interfere in any way with work on the farm, and perhaps an even greater reason is that the bee finds its source of honey supply close at hand so that long flights are not necessary when gathering honey.
During the years since 1920 those first five colonies have grown to nearly 1,000 in number. The Littlefields have established their honey business in a large two story building on the lot at the rear of the house.
In the work of beekeeping, Roy has not only kept up with all of the newest and best in commercial beekeeping, but has improved on the standard equipment in use today, and has added many conveniences of his own devising.
About 15% of each year's honey crop is disposed of locally. Some of this goes to the farmers who have acted as hosts to colonies of bees during the producing season, and the balance is placed in local grocery stores or sold directly to Exirans who go to the honey house. The remainder of the crop goes to a large honey packer in Kansas City, Mo.
After Roy's death in the 1960's, he willed his honey timber to Iowa State, who then turned it over to Audubon County. It became Littlefield Park, now Littlefield Recreation Area, southeast of Exira, and is still enjoyed by the community.
It is a shame that such enterprises can no longer survive in small town Iowa. But who knows? Perhaps with the coming energy crisis, the thousand-mile supply lines of the global world will shrink and people will be forced to act locally. It is this writer's opinion that an apiary today could be an interesting enterprise when combined with a local meadery, producing the nectar of the gods which has been imbibed since time immemorial.
That is, of course, if the bees survive. I was quite shocked and saddened after reading this lovely essay in Salon. What is causing the bees to disappear? Is this the canary in the coal mine for our modern world? It is a scary proposition.
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