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GLEANIN . S liN BEE CULTURE. 



Nov. 1 



comes from people who have an ax to grind, name- 

 ly, the express companies. The mail-order con- 

 cerns are not anxious for parcels post. 



* 



ALFALFA FOR HORSES. 



Mr. Joseph E. Wing, that prominent authority 

 on alfalfa culture, says that for feeding to horses 

 alfalfa should be allowed to grow till it is fairly 

 mature before being cut. Sometimes it does not 

 quite agree with them when first fed; but they 

 soon become accustomed to it, and they are actu- 

 ally better for it. They take on flesh, work bet- 

 ter, and feel better. 



The last crop of alfalfa he does not think should 

 be fed to horses, as it is not mature. The coars- 

 er crops grown earlier in the season are better. 

 Neither horses nor mules should be fed all the al- 

 falfa hay they will consume, as it is too rich a 

 feed, and they do not need so much of it. This 

 knocks the bottom out of the argument that al- 

 falfa should be cut before it blooms, and "Joe" 

 knows what he is talking about. He also says 

 there should be no mold on the hay. That is an 

 excellent point. There is only one remedy, and 

 that is to cure the alfalfa under hay-caps in the 

 field. When finally put into the hay-mow it 

 will not mold or rot, because it has been thor- 

 oughly "sweated" already. 

 # 



NEW BEE-KEEPING TERRITORY IN THE FAR SOUTH- 

 WEST. 



If the Imperial V?lley will hold no more bee- 

 keepers until Harriman waters that small matter 

 of 1,500,000 acres we must look around for other 

 fields to conquer. There is some room at Yuma, 

 on the government reclamation project, which 

 will soon be ready. Then there is the great Salt 

 River Valley project; but probably this will be 

 fairly well occupied by bee keepers now on the 

 spot. There will be 300,000 acres of irrigated 

 land at Parker, Arizona, where some one is build- 

 ing a great bridge over the Colorado River. 

 There is a considerable body of irrigated land at 

 Needles, on the Colorado, and more will be re- 

 claimed. There are 40,000 acres available at 

 Palo Verde, on the California side of the Colora- 

 do. The U. S. Reclamation Service has in mind 

 an immense project on the Colorado, embracing 

 Utah, Arizona, and California, which will cost 

 in the neighborhood of $40,000,000. That's 

 some money to spend on a dam. This would 

 completely dwarf the great Assouan dam on the 

 Nile, and make a great paradise for bee-keepers, 

 as alfalfa, dates, and oranges would be the lead- 

 ing crops. The date is a fine honey-yielder, ex- 

 celling alfalfa, in my opinion, and, of course, the 

 blossoms are not cut. 



New Mexico, too, is forging ahead, and ere 

 long will cut a figure as one of the important hon- 

 ey States. When the immense Elephant Butte 

 dam is completed, a great stretch of land will be- 

 come available for bee-keepers. Around Dem- 

 ing, pumping-plants are doing wonders in bring- 

 ing lost rivers to the surface, and probably large 

 areas elsewhere can be reclaimed. Southern Utah 

 (Utah's Dixie) holds much in store for bee-keep- 

 ers. Even oranges will grow, and the date is 

 hardier than the orange. Southern Nevada, too, 

 is making headway, and for fruit culture they 

 claim to have California "licked," whatever that 



may mean. Oranges grow there also, but figs 

 are in their glory and so are grapes. 



Date culture will help bee-keeping, and I opine 

 Texas will stand an excellent chance in this re- 

 spect. Florida might cut quite a figure in date- 

 growing, and probably the Sea Islands of Georgia 

 and South Carolina. Dates do well in Bermuda 

 and the West Indies, and it is amusing to see the 

 bees at work on the blossoms They simply 

 crawl over the blossom as they do on a feeder un- 

 til they fill up. 



* 



THE LORE OF THE HONEY-BEE, BY EDWARDES. 



At last we have a rival to Masterlinck, who 

 not only writes well but knows bees and bee- 

 keeping with certainty. It is evident that Mr. 

 Edwardes is a bee-keeper, and keeps himself well 

 informed on the latest developments in practical 

 bee-keeping. For example, on page ^6 he says, 

 "If, therefore, the new system of plurality of 

 queens both justifies and establishes itself, the 

 near future may see a revolution in all ideas re- 

 lating to beemanship. All that can be said for 

 certain at present is that as many as five queens 

 have been induced to occupy the same hive in 

 peace and quiet together; but whether this por 

 tentious state of affairs can remain a lasting one 

 is still to be proved. 



" A curious and (to the expert) a startling out- 

 come of these efforts to break down an old and 

 almost universal custom in bee-life is that the 

 successful establishment of several mother-beas in 

 a single hive appears to lessen the swarming im- 

 pulse. Hives so treated do not send out a swarm, 

 so far as is known." 



He is also at home on the physiology of bees, 

 as his remarks on the morphology of the queen 

 will show. On page 100 he says, " If the egg 

 deposited in the queen-cell be removed, and an 

 egg taken from any one of the thousands of work- 

 er-cells in a hive be put in its place, the worker 

 egg will always produce a fully developed and 

 accoutered queen-bee. On the other hand, if an 

 egg be taken from a queen-cell and rlaced in a 

 worker-cell it will infallibly hatch out into a 

 common under-sized worker. It would be suf- 

 ficient tax on the credibility if the differences of 

 queen and worker were only those of degree. If 

 the queen were nothing but a large-sized worker- 

 bee, on which certain organs — which were atro- 

 phied in the worker — had received their full de- 

 velopment, it would be a fact within comprehen- 

 sion; but the queen differs from the worker, not 

 only in size and the capability of her organism, 

 but also on several important points of structure. 

 And how can mere food and air and circumstance 

 produce structural change.? The worker has 

 many bodily appliances — special members ingen- 

 iously adapted to her daily tasks, of which the 

 queen is wholly destitute; while the physical or- 

 ganism of the queen varies from that of the work- 

 er in several"important degrees. 



" Some of these must be enumerated. The ab- 

 domen of the worker is comparatively short and 

 rounded; that of the queen is larger and longer, 

 and comes to a fairly sharp point. The jaws of 

 the queen are notched on their inner cutting edge; 

 the worker's jaws are smooth like the edge of a 

 knife. The tongue of the worker has a spatula 

 at its extremity, and is furnished with sensitive 

 hairs; the tongue of the queen is shorter, the 



