in any other section of the state. In Laramie County, in the southeastern corner, a large amount of honey is secured from successive crops of irrigated alfalfa. Good results are also obtained in Fremont County.

The largest irrigated areas in Colorado are in the valleys of the South Platte and Arkansas rivers; and it is only in the river valleys that beekeeping is an important industry in the Great Plains region of the state. There are few bees in the Rocky Mountain parks, but immense crops of honey are gathered on the western slope. Eastern Colorado is well stocked with bees; but in the western portion there is room for many more apiaries. Agriculture and beekeeping in New Mexico are mainly restricted to the valleys of the Rio Grande, Pecos, and San Juan rivers.

Among the mountains of northern Idaho, as at Sandpoint, good crops are gathered from white clover, alsike clover, buckwheat, and fireweed. In the southern portions of the state where alfalfa is extensively grown under irrigation, and also a large acreage of alsike clover, commercial beekeeping is successful in the Boise Valley in the southwest, at Twin Falls in the south, and in the vicinity of Idaho Falls in the southeast.

Most of the beekeepers of Utah are located in the mountainous agricultural belt extending through the center of the state, in the Uintah Basin, south of the Uintah Mountains, and in Emery County. The larger portion of the irrigated area and consequently of the alfalfa acreage lies in the central tract, where water is brought down from the higher levels. There are many commercial beekeepers in this region. Alfalfa is grown extensively for seed in the Uintah Basin and affords an immense pasturage for bees; but, in the absence of a railroad, transportation is expensive. In Emery County a total failure of the honey crop has never occurred. Nevada is largely a desert, but great crops of honey are produced in the western counties from irrigated alfalfa.

Maricopa County and the Salt River Valley stand easily in advance of any other county in Arizona both in agriculture and bee culture. One of the most noted irrigation systems in the world, the Salt River project, is capable of irrigating more than 200,000 acres of land. Alfalfa and cotton cover a large acreage. In the Yuma country, in southwestern Arizona, where a great area is irrigated from the Colorado River, and alfalfa, cotton, and mesquite are abundant, there is room for many more colonies of bees. The Arizona deserts, near Phoenix, according to E. R. Root, can furnish thousands of pounds of bees in packages in early spring for the honey flows of California and many other western states.

The average annual rainfall in Washington and Oregon west of the Cascade Range exceeds one hundred inches, coming between November and May, but the summers are almost arid. In the lumbered section of the Coast Range fireweed, or willow-herb, offers wonderful possibilities; but colonies of bees require special management and the flow is not always reliable. East of the Cascade Range there are many large honey producers in the Yakima Valley, a rugged area of land in the eastern foothills of the mountains. Irrigated alfalfa is the chief honey plant. In eastern Oregon commercial beekeeping is probably more successful in Umatilla County than in any other county in the state. Good crops of honey are also secured in Malheur County.

California is surpassed in area only by Texas, but in climate and physical features it offers greater contrasts than any other state. The conditions of beekeeping are exceedingly diversified. In Los Angeles County and the adjacent territory is found the most dense area of bees in the United States. On the other hand, at no great distance away in the San Bernardino desert there may be no rain for an entire year and bees would quickly perish in this arid region. The climate of northwestern California resembles that of western Oregon, but the dry season is more pronounced.