246 MANUAL or THE APIARY. 



CHAPTER XVII. 



WINTERING- BEES. 



This is a subject, of course, of paramount 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 wintering has not been solved already, it surely 

 will be, and that speedily. So important 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 I think, though 

 in opposition to such excellent apiarists as Marvin, Heddon, 

 etc., that 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 effect 

 to cause. Even an epidemic — which would by no means skip 

 by the largest, finest apiaries, owned and controlled by the 

 wisest, most careful, and most thoughtful, as has been the 

 case in the late "winters of our discontent, " nor only choose 

 winters of excessive cold, or following great drouth and 

 absence of honey secretion in which to work its havoc — 

 would surely yield to man's invention. 



THE CAUSE OP DISASTROUS V(riNTERING. 



Epidemic, then, being set aside as no factor in the solution, 

 to what shall we ascribe such wide-spread disasters ? I fully 

 believe, and to no branch of this subject 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 pro- 

 tracted cold with excessive dampness. I know from actual 

 and wide-spread observation, that the severe loss of 1870 and 



