•90 THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW 



queens that seemingly mated to yellow drones would do this. I 

 used this stock for seven generations, selecting the yellow queens 

 and they bred pure every time. 



{Continued in April nuuiher.) 



Irrigation Opens Up New Fields — The Other Side 



of the Question. 



S. KING CLOVER. 



■ ^\i NOTICE an article in the January number of the Review, 

 Jl page 2-5, "Irrigation Opens Up New Fields," and I wish to make 

 some comments upon the same. I have been in the Yakima 

 Valley since the spring of 1904, and all the while actively engaged 

 in bee culture, and have had some experience so far as "locality" is 

 concerned. ^,. :,,• 



BEE JOURITAI.S GUILTY. "''^ 



The Department of the Interior, the bee journals, newspapers, 

 real estate agents, and the railroads are very active in advertising 

 the irrigated districts of the west as profitable localities for bee- 

 keeping. A great wrong I fear is being done, first, to the bee- 

 keeper that is already located, and second, to the bee-keeper that 

 may be induced to sell out in the east and come to a place which 

 may not suit him nor his family. We read of some irrigation pro- 

 ject that is about to be opened up, and become of the opinion that, 

 as if by magic, it will be turned into one vast alfalfa field affording 

 unlimited forage for hundreds of colonies of bees. This is far from 

 true. A great amount of the country west of the rockies has been 

 in volcanic action, and is strewn many feet deep with volcanic ashes, 

 which has become decomposed, and with the aid of irrigation will 

 grow crops. The soil being light the wind blows it easily and in 

 time it is in appearance to drift. Before the land can be seeded it 

 must be "leveled," i.e., given a general slope in some direction. The 

 leveling or grading of land preparatory to seeding is both laborious 

 and sometimes quite expensive, and costs as much as one hundred 

 dollars an acre, though twenty to fifty is a common price to pay an 

 acre for grading. It may be readily seen that the land is not seeded 

 with a rush. We have windy springs, beginning often in March 

 and keeping up more or less all the time until July. 



HARD TO GET SEEDING. 



Unless there is plenty of water availal)le all the time the seed- 

 ing may be blown out, necessitating re-seeding. Then there are the 

 land speculators who buy up large quantities and hold it for an 

 advance in price, expecting the improved land to increase the price 



