THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



2(55 



and a room for holdintj the meeting is fur- 

 nished free by the same liotel. The result is 

 that tliese Chicago meetings are always well 

 attended, interesting and prolitable. For 

 Western bee keepers there is notliing like a 

 convention in Chicago. The Northwestern 

 has suffered from dropping some of its 

 meetings because the North American held 

 its sessions either in or near Chicago. This 

 year the North American holds its convention 

 so far P^ast (Albany, N. Y.,) that few West- 

 ern men can attend, hence the Chicago con- 

 vention will be the convention this year for 

 Western bee keepers, and a good meeting 

 may be expected. 



ALFALFA FAKMING. 



The CoamopoUtan for November contains 

 an illustrated article upon " Alfalfa Farm- 

 ing." It was written by John Brisben 

 Walker, who was for ten years an alfalfa 

 farmer in Colorado, and prominently con- 

 nected with the introduction of alfalfa into 

 that State, beginning with a few acres and 

 experimenting until his crop exceeded 3000 

 tons p( r annum. He believes that " over at 

 least one-third of the United States, alfalfa 

 may be grown to so great an advantage that 

 it is doubtful whether any other crop can 

 equal it in productiveness." He describes 

 very fully the processs of sowing, irrigating 

 and curing alfalfa, but, strange to say, if he 

 has been an alfalfa farmer for ten years, not 

 one word is said in regard to its value as a 

 honey producing plant. When the area 

 cultivated reaches 1,000 acres the process of 

 harvesting goes on constantly from the first 

 of June until the last of ( )ctober. There are 

 three cuttings during the year, " the second 

 crop being ready for the cutting, where the 

 machines were first put to work, by the time 

 that the last field of the first cutting has 

 been cleared." I should suppose that this 

 course would result in a continuous bloom, 

 and, if this is the case, it is not to be won- 

 dered that Colorado can furnish car loads 

 of alfalfa honey. 



OLD BEES CAN SEOKETE WAX AND KEAK BKOOD. 



Mr. E. France sends to Gleanings a most 

 interesting account of an experiment made 

 by himself the past seasoQ, that of removing 

 the brood (just before it hatched) from a 

 swarm of bees hived .Tune 10th, until the 

 bees had been rearing brood and secreti^ig 

 wax for a period of ninety days, yet not a 



bee had been hatched in the hive. Except 

 the stragglers that may have entered from 

 adjoining hives, the hive contained no bees 

 that were not hatched at least three months 

 previous, yet quite a fair swarm remained, 

 and, Sept. 14, they were yet building comb 

 and rearing brood. Mr. France says he is 

 not sure but that they would pass the winter 

 if allowed to hatch the crop of brood that is 

 coming on. 



The experiment seems to prove that bees 

 can live longer thau some very good author- 

 ities have said they would. It also shows 

 that old bees can secrete wax and rear brood, 

 but it does not show that they can do so to 

 so great an advantage as can the younger 

 bees. It must be remembered, however, 

 that in this experiment the colony was not 

 exactly in a normal condition. The hatching 

 of young bees would have sent all of the old 

 bees into the fields where their wings would 

 have been worn out sooner than in the hive. 

 As it was, a large share of the workers were 

 kept at home by the lack of younger bees for 

 nurses, and thereby saved the wear and tear 

 on their wings. Ttie introduction of an 

 Italian queen into a black colony June 1st 

 shows that, ordinarily, the life of a worker 

 in the working season is less than ninety 

 days, and that the work of brood rearing, 

 wax secretion (voluntary) and comb build- 

 ing falls to the young bees. 



SHALL THE SPECIAL TOPICS BE CONTINUED IN 

 EVERY ISSUE ? 



With the end of this volume the Review 

 will have taken up and discussed forty-seven 

 of the leading debatable topics connected 

 with apiculture. As I look the ground over 

 it appears as though it had been pretty well 

 covered. It seems as though, if the Review 

 continues to take up, each month, some sub- 

 ject for special discussion, that many times 

 it will be necessary to choose some quite 

 trivial topics. I think it would not be ad- 

 visable to drop these special discussions en- 

 tirely, as new things are being brought out 

 quite often (like the bee escape, for in- 

 stance), while other topics seem to come up 

 almost of themselves, as, for instance, that 

 of adulteration of honey. When there is 

 any occasion for an extensive discussion let 

 it be held, but it seems to me as though, now 

 tliat the Review has discussed most of the 

 important, unsolved, apicultural problems, 

 that its usefulness would be impaired by 



