Happy Thursday!

Good luck to the Cyclones 🌪 at the Cy-Hawk game this weekend! I know we are going to bring home a win 🏆.

Our top story this week is about synthetic honey, how to distinguish it from real honey and local beekeepers’ take on the product. 

Also in this newsletter: People at downtown Ames events could walk the sidewalks with a beer or cocktail in hand without breaking the law, McFarland Clinic’s method to providing exemplary care to the community and the city has some new urban renewal plans.

Community Voices features some tips on how to stay active with CrossFit, and the Little Cyclones suffered a loss at home against Urbandale.

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Thank you for your continued support,

Amber Mohmand, News Editor
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The honey on your morning toast may not be totally from bees, and it’s stirring up central Iowa beekeepers.

Tyler Holton, who has 1,500 hives near Elkhart, is one of them.

“We don’t produce enough honey in the U.S. to meet the demand of Americans, so wholesalers bring in foreign honey,” Holton said.

The problem, Holton explained, is that foreign honey is often not labeled or mislabeled, and it is sometimes altered by adding corn syrup, rice syrup or sweeteners from other grains. Those are all cheaper than honey 100% from bees.

“I’d like to make a good living from beekeeping, so we need to do something,“ Holton said. He went on to say that cheap, foreign products undercut beekeepers who can’t match those prices and have lost ground on market share.