ALFALFA 
21 
a little later, depending largely upon the 
time they commence to rear brood. The 
bees will live considerably longer if no 
brood is reared, as has been several times 
demonstrated in the case of strong queen¬ 
less colonies. It has been said that black 
bees will live longer in the spring than 
Italians—probably because the latter are 
more inclined to push out into the fields 
when the weather is too cool for them to 
do so with safety; they seldom do this, 
however, unless a large amount of brood 
is on hand, and they are suffering for 
pollen or water. 
During the summer months, the life of 
the worker bee is cut short by the wearing- 
out of its wings, and, at the close of a 
warm day, hundreds of these heavily laden, 
ragged-winged veterans will be found mak¬ 
ing their way into the hives slowly and 
painfully, as compared with the nimble 
and perfect-winged young bees. If the 
ground around the apiary be examined at 
nightfall, numbers of these old bees may 
be seen hopping about, evidently recog¬ 
nizing their own inability to be of any fur¬ 
ther use to the community. The author has 
repeatedly picked them up and placed 
them in the entrance, but they usually seem 
bent only on crawling and hopping off out 
of the way where they can die without hin¬ 
dering the teeming rising generation. Dur¬ 
ing the height of a honey flow workers 
probably do not live more than six weeks. 
AGE OF DRONES. 
It is somewhat difficult to decide upon 
the age of drones, because the poor fellows 
are so often hustled out of the way for the 
simple reason that they are no longer want¬ 
ed (see Drones) ; but it may be assumed to 
be something less than the age of a work¬ 
er. If kept constantly in a queenless hive, 
they might live for three or four months. 
Occasionally some live over winter, from 
September to April. 
AGE OF THE QUEEN. 
As the queen seldom if ever leaves the 
hive except at mating and at swarming 
time one would naturally expect her to live 
to a good, old age, and this she does, de¬ 
spite her arduous egg-laving duties. Some 
queens die, seemingly of old age, the second 
season, but generally they live thru the sec¬ 
ond or third, and they have been known to 
lay very well even during the fourth year. 
They are seldom profitable after the sec¬ 
ond or third year, and the Italians will 
sometimes have a young queen “helping” 
mother before the beekeeper recognizes the 
old queen as a failing one. Some good 
beekeepers think it profitable to requeen 
yearly. 
ALFALFA. (Medicago sativa L.).—Al¬ 
falfa belongs to the pulse family, or Legu- 
minosae, which includes more than 5,000 
species. Many of the species are very 
abundant, and valuable for fodder or edi¬ 
ble seeds or dyes, as white and yellow sweet 
clover, the true clovers, sainfoin, and the 
vetches, peas, beans, and lentils, and in¬ 
digo. The cassias and acacias are also 
placed in this family by Gray. Alfalfa is a 
perennial, herbaceous plant with trifoliate 
leaves; violet-purple, irregular flowers in 
short racemes; and spirally twisted pods, 
each containing several kidney-shaped 
seeds. A most important character of al¬ 
falfa is the taproot, which may extend 
downward to a depth of 15 feet, enabling 
the plant to obtain food materials and 
water inaccessible to other field crops. The 
genus Medicago contains more than 100 
species and varieties, natives of the Cau¬ 
casus and western Siberia, the Mediter¬ 
ranean region and northern Africa. One 
species (M. arborea ) is a shrub growing in 
the vicinity of the Mediterranean Sea 10 
feet tall and producing a hard dark wood 
resembling ebony. The foliage furnishes ex¬ 
cellent forage for cattle and sheep. In 
California it is cultivated as an ornamen¬ 
tal shrub for its bright yellow flowers. 
HISTORY. 
The common alfalfa is probably of 
Asiatic origin, as it has been found grow¬ 
ing wild in Afghanistan, Persia, and the 
region south of the Caucasus. In China it 
has been under cultivation from a ■ very 
early date. The plant was brought into 
Greece at the time of the Persian war, 470 
B. C., from Media whence the scientific 
name Medicago. In Italy it has been culti¬ 
vated from about the first century, and is 
well described by Virgil and Pliny. Dur¬ 
ing the Middle Ages it received the vernac¬ 
ular name of lucerne from the Valley of 
