i8o 



TH:e BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



naked eye." Pictures and descriptions 

 can never do them justice; although the 

 following, taken from " A Colorado 

 Summer," a book published by the Santa 

 Fe railroad, is certainly very fine as a 

 description. 



Pile rock strata on rock strata in a 

 gigantic uplift more than a mile high, 

 and gash the stupendous mass at frequent 

 intervals with chasms, gorges and can- 

 ons, through which rush snow-born 

 streams. Adorn banks and crags and 

 parks with trees of an everlasting green, 

 finishing off with a velvety carpet of grass 

 where wild animals may stealthily tread, 

 and there plant columbines and ane- 

 mones, twin sisters of fragile grace. 



Presto ! You have created that most 

 forbidding and seductive thing, a moun- 

 tain. It rises skyward, gracious and un- 

 bending, friendly, yet aloof. Combine 

 the mountains into ranges and systems, 

 scattering them over an empire's extent 

 as lavishly as a child throws kisses to its 

 mother. Tip each peak with snow, and 

 light the league-long slopes with dazzling 

 sunshine. Let clouds fringe the sentinel 

 peaks and hang their bridal veils of mist 

 far down each mountain's breast. The 

 scene is then ready for tired men and 

 women and little children, who come and 

 gaze awhile and depart satisfied because 

 they have seen a vision not wholly of this 

 earth. 



No other mountains in the world are 

 quite like the Rockies. Mont Blanc and 

 the Jungfrau are here matched many 

 times over by peaks as yet unknown to 

 fame. The mountain systems of Colo- 

 rado — a fragment of the whole^occupy 

 live times the area of the Alpine chains. 



It is in Colorado these mighty upheav- 

 als of the earth's crust are most typical 

 of the ungentle, massive and tumultu- 

 ous. Their grandeur is for the beholder. 

 Neither pen nor picture can adequately 

 transfer and reincarnate the impression. 

 Several noted artists, notably Moran and 

 Bierstadt, have placed their interpreta- 

 tions on canvas; Jackson has photograph- 

 ed every notable sight in the State; dis- 

 tinguished journalists and authors have 

 written in praise of Colorado's scenic 

 charms — and yet it is true that the best 

 reading will be your own, face to face. 

 The camera utterly fails to depict moun- 

 tain colors or lights or distances. And 

 you who may have seen it once or many 

 times, can not speak of the vision to your 

 dearest friend. Trv to put the experience 

 into words and the spell is broken, the 

 charm is gone. Adjectives do not illus- 

 trate anything worth while. Thus the 



Colorado mountains ever remain the des- 

 pair of poet and painter while ever luring 

 on to new endeavor. 



The Alleghenies, Adirondacks and 

 White Mountains seem ultra-refined and 

 civilized, compared with the savage maj- 

 esty of the peaks that rise sheer and 

 awful from Colorado's plateaus. They 

 have no everlasting snow, no untimbered 

 slopes, no peaks that rest on the sky. 

 The most noted of them are scarcely a 

 mile high. They would feel lonesome if 

 plumped down in the Rockies. 



In New England the predominating 

 color is a hazy purple, splashed with 

 scarlet when autumn comes; the ascents 

 are less abrupt; the contours are more 

 rounded and graceful; grasses and thick- 

 foliaged under-growths, clinging mosses 

 and lichens, soften and hide the rocky 

 walls — the scene is almost pastoral in 

 simplicity and beauty. 



Here in Colorado the prevailing tint is 

 a brownish red, lavishly laid on with 

 dark greens and heavy purples where 

 the shadows lie, and a desolate whiteness 

 among the summit snowdrifts. There is 

 little green in the aggregate mass of 

 color effects — though on close acquain- 

 tance it will be found that the most for- 

 bidding chasms below timber-line are not 

 lacking verdure, and in the lower hills 

 each canon has its stream fringed with 

 willows and aspens and larches, its side 

 walls where pinons find root, and its 

 dotting of yellow, blue, purple and scar- 

 let flowers. The giant rock stratas, up- 

 tilted thousands of feet in air — treeless, 

 shrubless, lifeless— are the master note 

 of the whole effect, and it is something 

 awfully sublime and infinitely powerful 

 that the Rocky Mountains are longest 

 remembered. 



To ever3' reader of the Review who 

 can possibly do so, I say go to Denver 

 next September, attend one of the grand- 

 est conventions we have ever held, and 

 then spend a few days enjoying some of 

 the grandest mountain scenery there is 

 to be found in all of this wide world. 



LONGEVITY OF BEES. 



How to Rear Long Lived Queens that will 

 Produce Long Lived Bees. 



There has been some discussion of 

 late regarding longevity in bees and 



