The Cycle of the Year 83 



Colorado. In other words, the difference in "locality" is 

 too often considered as a matter of geography. Obviously, 

 political boundaries are nothing to bees and they behave 

 similarly everywhere under similar conditions. The differ- 

 ences lie in a failure to observe and to record the peculiar 

 conditions of the "locality," to appreciate the underlying 

 causes of the behavior of the bees and to explain why the 

 manipulation is a success or a failure, as the case may be, 

 in the light of local conditions. If these distinctions were 

 better understood, it would save much loss of effort and 

 many failures. Obviously, a beekeeper should know not 

 only what to do and when to do it, but why. It frequently 

 happens that a beekeeper going from one place to another 

 attempts to follow his former practices in the new place 

 and usually this leads to failure. 



The flows of nectar which are of value for surplus are 

 those which come after the colonies are strong, but earlier 

 honey-flows are of great value in providing stores and in 

 furnishing a stimulus to breeding. For each situation, 

 it is therefore most desirable that the plants which furnish 

 nectar be known and that the usual time of blossoming be 

 learned. With this information, the beekeeper can so 

 manipulate his colonies as to obtain maximum results. 

 The study of the periods of blossoming is especially neces- 

 sary in the more northern regions where the honey-flows 

 are sharply circumscribed. In the South, the honey-flows 

 more usually run together and there is less difficulty in 

 having colonies strong for the surplus honey-flows. Honey 

 plants do not bloom in the same relative times in different 

 localities. For example, in some places white clover has 

 usually ceased to secrete nectar before the basswood honey- 

 flow begins while in others they are mixed. Following the 

 clover honey-flow there is often a dearth until the fall flowers 

 begin to secrete, but in some northern localities white clover 

 may be delayed and the fall flow advanced until they leave 

 practically no interval. 



A current fallacy should perhaps be denied. Bees do 



