The above dates are only true for the most part in Michigan and Northern Ohio, and for more Southern latitudes must be varied, which by comparison of a few, as the fruit trees, becomes no difficult matter. 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 disasters 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 OF DISASTROUS WINTERING. 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 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 consequently the stores were unwholesome. I tasted of honey from many hives only to find it most nauseating. I fully believe that had the honey been thoroughly extracted the previous autumn, and the bees fed good honey or sugar, no loss would have been experienced. At least it is significant that all who did so, escaped, even where their neighbors all failed. Nor less so the fact that when I discovered eight of my twelve colonies dead, and four more just alive, I cleaned the remaining ones all out, and to one no worse nor better than the others I gave good capped honey stored early the previous summer, while the others were left with their old stores, that one lived and gave the best record I have ever known, the succeeding season, while all the others died.