ADVANCED BEE CULTURE. 25 



Tlie Infflmence @f ILocalityo 



1 N mj' earlier bee-keeping- years, I was often sorely puzzled at the 

 diametrically opposite views often expressed by the different 

 correspondents for the bee journals. In extenuation of that 

 state of mind I may say that at that time I did not dream of the 

 wonderful differences of locality in its relation to the management 

 of bees. I saw, measured, weighed, compared, and considered all 

 things apicultural by the standard of my own home — Genesee 

 County, Michigan. It was not until I had seen the fields of New 

 York white with buckwheat, admired the luxuriance of sweet clover 

 growth in the suburbs of Chicago, followed for miles the great irri- 

 gating ditches of Colorado where they give life to the royal purple of 

 the alfalfa bloom, and climbed mountains in California, pulling my- 

 self up by grasping the sage brush, that I fully realized the great 

 amount of apicultural meaning stored up in that one little word — 

 locality. 



The basic principles of apiculture are the same the world over, 

 but the management must be varied according to the locality. In 

 the South and extreme West, the wintering of bees is easily accom- 

 plished; it being necessary, only, to see that they have sufficient food. 

 As we go North, some protection must be given — either by packing 

 or by the use of chaff hives. As we go still farther North, success- 

 ful wintering is secured, as a rule, only by the use of first-class 

 winter-stores, and putting the bees into a cellar. 



In Cuba and Florida the honey harvest comes in the cooler part 

 of the year, or what corresponds to our Northern winter, and those 

 varieties of bees that will breed late in the summer, even though 

 little or no honey is coming in, are more desirable; as more popu- 

 lous colonies are thus secured at the opening of winter. In the 

 Northern States, east of the Mississippi, the main honey-flow comes, 



