MANUAL OP THE APIARY. 



37 



HOW TO WINTEE. 



This is the subject, of course, of paramotint importance to the apiarist, as 

 this is the rock on which some of even the most successful have recently split. 

 Yet I come fearlessly to consider this question, as from all the multitude of dis- 

 asters I see no occasion for discouragement. If the problem of successful win- 

 tering has not been solved already, it surely will be, and that speedily. So im- 

 portant an interest was never yet vanquished by misfortune, and there is no 

 reason to think that history is now going to be reversed. Even the worst aspect 

 of the case, in favor of which there is no proof, and but few suggestions even, 

 that these calamities are the effects of an epidemic, would be all powerless to 

 dishearten men trained to reason from eilect to cause. Even an epidemic — 

 which would by no means skip by the largest, finest apiaries, owned and con- 

 trolled by the wisest, most careful, and most thoughtful, as has been the case 

 in the winters of our late discontent — would surely yield to man's invention. 



WHAT THEN IS THE CAUSE? 



Epidemic then, being set aside as no factor in the solution, to what shall we 

 ascribe such wide-spread reverses. I fully believe, and to no branch of this sub- 

 ject have I given more thought, study, and observation, that all the losses may 

 be traced' either to unwholesome food, failure in late breeding of the previous 

 year, extremes of temperature, or to protracted cold with excessive dampness. 

 I know from actual and wide-spread observation, that the severe loss of 1870 

 and 1871 was attended in this part of Michigan with unsuitable honey in the 

 hive. The previous autumn was unprecedentedly dry. Flowers were rare, and 

 storing was largely from insect secretion, and the stores unwholesome. I tasted 



