94 



FIFTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT OF THE 



are if you have ever been in Wiscon- 

 sin; this does not appear in Illinois, 

 of course. 



Now then to come back to the sub- 

 ject: "The Value of Young Queens." 

 They would look at me in surprise 

 when I asked them if they knew the 

 age of their queens. 



Why we have, up in our state, men 

 who have boasted to me they don't be- 

 lieve in this buying of queens, they 

 never did such a thing in their lives 

 and don't believe in it. 



I suppose you will pardon me for 

 referring to my own state so often. 



If I were to go to some of our men 

 who are purchasing, in the dairy line, 

 the best registered sires that can be 

 had, upon the line in which they are 

 working, I would find that must be 

 exchanged in the near future for still 

 better blood, if it can be had, until 

 practically that entire herd is nearly 

 thoroughbred and he is then regis- 

 tered for selling thoroughbred, and he 

 is proud of his stock; and he will then 

 take care of it better than he did be- 

 fore. 



If the sire of that herd has cost 

 him several hundred dollars, he will 

 take care of it, and those that follow 

 from it will be cared for. 



So in the line of breeding. He has 

 brought up the standard of perfection 

 in his dairy to a point by which he is 

 proud of it. 



I remember, on the east side of the 

 state a few years ago, a man w-ho 

 had grown gray with the care of 

 breeding up on a certain line. Mis- 

 fortune had come in, his wife laid 

 away, his children grown up, and he 

 was left at home alone. 



Would he go and live with the chil- 

 dren ? 



He said: "I hafve one more duty to 

 perform before life takes me: That 

 cow has got to prove to the world 

 what is possible with breeding and 

 feeding," and, he told me, he was not 

 out of sight of that cow for a year 

 with the exception of one and one- 

 half days. 



The result? That Guernsey cow 

 produced, in actual butter, more than 

 her weight in one year. 



I saw her little calf, w-hich was 

 sold before birth for $100; that was 

 not scrub stock. 



What will I find in an apiary with- 

 in the same postofRce address with 

 this cow? 



A man who has been putting honey 

 upon the state in advance of others — 

 and some bee-keepers asked me to go 

 and inspect his bee yard, thinking that 

 something was wrong — that he must be 

 adulterating to produce such nice 

 honey and get it on the market so 

 early. 



What did I find? 



He had been selecting and buying 

 queens from abroad; he had young 

 queens; he gave them care and at- 

 tention, and he was having fancy 

 clover honey on the market when his 

 neighbors had just got their bees be- 

 ginning to work in the sections. 



There is something to it, that a 

 young queen is ambitious and there is 

 much less tendency to swarm than 

 an old one, and will fill our hives in 

 the spring when the old queen will not. 



Will keep up the brood rearing so 

 that w'hen the honey flow comes we 

 have a hive full to overflowing with 

 bees. 



Whereas, if we leave the queen 

 proposition alone, the chances are we 

 would not get ready for brood rear- 

 ing when the honeyflow^ begins, and 

 our best brood rearing is in the honey 

 flow. 



The question was asked last week 

 of our largest comb honej' producer 

 in the state: What did he do to 

 check swarming during the honey 

 ffow? He said: "the queen is no 

 longer of value to me when the honey 

 flow is at its best; I pinch her head 

 off; her daughters are to come on and 

 take her place the latter end of the 

 season." 



In the poultry business, if you have 

 to winter your hens on expensive feed 

 throughout the winter and get few 

 eggs only in the summer time when 

 prices are at their lowest, it is not 

 profitable. 



It is just as true with bees; if we 

 have old queens that will not begin 

 brood rearing until the honey flow. 



In order to make this matter open 

 for discussion: Young queens mean 

 hive full of bees at that time when 

 you want it; less swarming, and, if a 

 queen of proper blood has been intro- 

 duced, little or no disease, especially 

 European foul brood. 



A young queen, I think, would cut 

 no flgure with American; with Euro- 

 pean I know it does, decidedly. 



There are three things that are 



