A review of some typical beekeeping regions may help to clarify this subject of regional differences.

1. Although in some regions of mixed flowers, there is considerable white, alsike, and sweet clover, these are not at their best, and are helped out by an occasional crop from red clover, by some basswood, and some fall honey from goldenrod, asters and Spanish needle. The typical early spring sources, willow, maple, dandelion and fruit bloom make a crop of honey comparatively certain if the bees winter well and no disease is present, though because of inferior stores, poor wintering is frequent. In these locations, natural stores often need to be supplemented by sugar syrup fed late in the fall.

2. In the best clover regions, wintering is easy because the bees have only the best of honey for winter stores. The bees build up quickly in the spring to maximum strength if given half a chance.

3. In the tulip-tree region, the honey-flow comes so early, about May 10, that unless the bees have come through winter in excellent condition, they will not be at honey-storing strength so early in the season. Without some protection and some sugar syrup, bees in this region seldom winter well, tulip-tree and late fall honey not being of the best quality for wintering. Bees in this region are likely to have "dysentery, " "spring dwindling, " and all the other wintering ills that bees are heir to.

4. The buckwheat region is like the tulip-tree region in having no midseason honeyflow. Moreover, the early flow is also lacking and it is not until almost autumn that any surplus is stored. Bees often suffer in the early part of the season from scarcity of stores, and it is only by adapting beekeeping practice to locality conditions that a crop of buckwheat honey can be secured.

Where the buckwheat nectar flows.

Where sweet clover is the chief source of nectar.

5. In the alfalfa-sweet clover regions there may be sources of early nectar sufficient to enable a colony to build up naturally for the rather late, slow, and prolonged flow, even if, as in some of these areas, minor sources are lacking; and beekeeping is more akin to that in the buckwheat region although the honeyflow is much longer and begins earlier in the season. This long, moderate flow, brings quite different problems before the apiarist. In such locations, the beekeeper who takes what comes without much effort to get the best results, usually finds that he has weak colonies in the spring.

Unless there is a good subsidiary dandelion or other spring flow, the colonies are likely to run short of stores, will perhaps need feeding, probably will not be fed, resulting in small colonies at the beginning of the main flow. This accounts, in great measure, for the statement frequently made, that the first blooming of alfalfa yields no nectar. Bees in good condition, however, store a good surplus crop from it.

Here, as in the orange region, the crop is small because most colonies are mere nuclei at the beginning and must build up while the flow is on. A few beekeepers, who have strong colonies at the beginning of the orange-flow, get a full crop, while the ordinary colony stores only a few pounds. Any beekeeper can get a full crop from the later cuttings of alfalfa, although many colonies, having reached maximum strength, will not keep that strength during the four-month season, but will store honey much more slowly from the last cuttings of alfalfa than from the midseason ones. This problem of maximum strength over a long period concerns beekeepers in the clover region but little.

If the beekeeper in the alfalfa-sweet clover region does have an early minor flow, his colonies may build up to full strength a month before the main honey-flow comes on, with a consequent dropping off in egg laying, and a slowing up of activities until, when the flow does come, most of the bees in the hive are old ones that soon die off, making it necessary for the colony to build up again, ready, perhaps, to store honey during the latter half of the blooming period.

6. Semi-arid regions such as the mes-quite country of Texas, and other sections of the southwest United States, present still another problem to the apiarist. In these regions the honeyflows are uncertain, both drouths and rains upsetting the best calculations of the beekeeper. If there is almost no rain for more than a year, as may happen, not even deep-rooted trees can bloom regularly; and if torrential rains come when trees are just beginning to bloom, practically all the blossoms are destroyed. In such regions the beekeeper is dependent almost wholly on wild and tree flowers, blooming irregularly. Trees survive drouths that herbs cannot, but even trees are dependent on annual rainfall for profuse, regular blooming and the quantity of nectar secreted. In a region of delayed and irregular blooming, the beekeeper faces the difficult problem of having colonies ready to gather nectar whenever the flowers do appear. If a colony is strong at the right time, much honey will be stored, while if weak, little can be expected.

The problem is, how to keep the colonies strong for several months while waiting until the trees get ready to bloom if delayed by drouth, and how to have them ready in time if blossoming comes early because of early rains.

In the northern states, the apiarist anticipates the approximate time of the flow and prepares accordingly. In the semi-arid southwest and in similar al-most tropical regions, blooming periods are likely to occur irregularly, depending upon the weather. Some shrubs may bloom in the spring, or not until autumn. If the season is too dry, some yield no nectar although they do blossom; or if the season is favorable, they may blossom several times, following heavy rains.