THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW 



57 



D. Chapman, living: between Mancelona 

 and Bellaire, said that a circle eight 

 miles in diameter might be drawn, with 

 his home as its center, and in the western 

 half would be found more than 1.900 

 colonies ! 



Mr. H. K. Beecham. living perhaps 20 

 miles southwest of Mr. Chapman, wrote 

 me last month, and. among other things, 

 he said : 



I have taken the Review ever since it 

 started, and wouldn't like to stop it. 

 but there is one thing in it that I have not 

 liked, and that is its course in urging bee- 

 keepers to come to Northern Michigan, 

 especially to this part of it. Several of 

 my neighbors have from one to twenty 

 colonies, and now another bee-keeper is 

 about to start in within a mile of my 

 place- in territory that is already over- 

 stocked. Seems to me that the golden 

 rule is entirely forgotten. 



The Review has certainly sung the 

 praises of Northern Michigan, but it has 

 never advised bee-keepers to crowd in 

 where they had no moral right to go- 

 that is. upon territory already fully occu- 

 pied. When I receive letters like the one 

 from which 1 give an extract in another 

 column (the New York man who has a 

 failure year after year) it seems a pity to 

 keep still about Northern Michigan when 

 I know there are still many locations 

 where the wild raspberry "wastes its 

 sweetness on the desert air." Of course 



the locations near to the railroad, and to 

 towns, are taken first, and the men who 

 go there now are compelled to go back 

 further in order to find unoccupied terri- 

 tory: and they ought to do it. Self inter- 

 est alone ought to indicate such a course. 

 No condemnation can be too severe for 

 the man who will crowd in upon occupied 

 territory. When my brother and myself 

 went to that region to establish apiaries, 

 we spent many days and dollars in find- 

 ing locations entirely unoccupied: but. in 

 order to do this, we were obliged to go 

 back a dozen miles from the railroad, 

 crossing several miles of pine barrens be- 

 fore reaching a strip of hard timber. 

 The strip is perhaps three or four miles 

 wide, and maybe a dozen miles long. 

 Now, this little hard wood tract is where 

 we have located: and to have some other 

 bee-keeper come and crowd in upon us, 

 when there are other just as good un- 

 occupied locations to be found by hunting 

 for them, would seem to us. or to any fair- 

 minded man. a rank injustice. The time 

 may come when these matters will be 

 adjusted legally, but not in our day. and 

 bee-keepers, and bee journals, and every- 

 one ought to do every possible thing to 

 prevent, and to frown down upon, this 

 practice of crowding. 1 know that any 

 fair-minded bee-keeper will be welcomed 

 to any region, if he will come in the right 

 spirit, and not crowd. 



CELLAR-WINTERING. 



Temperature, Ventilation, Moisture, and 



Disturbance are all to be 



Considered. 



Success in bee-keeping comes from 

 proper attention and the understanding of 

 many details. We can't put our finger on 

 any one thing and say, "Here is the key 

 to success." And this idea is more par- 

 ticularly applicable to wintering than to 



any other phase of bes-keeping. It isn't 

 a dry cellar, nor a wet one. nor a cold 

 one nor a warm one. nor the right food, 

 it is not any one of these things alone 

 that will bring the bees through in per- 

 fect condition, but it is the proper com- 

 bination of all these points that makes 

 perfect success. Of the many articles 

 that I have read on the cellar-wintering 

 of bees, 1 doubt if I have read a better 

 one than that contributed by that old 

 veteran, E. W. Alexander, and published 



