ILLINOIS STATE BEE-KEEPERS' ASSOCIATION 



95 



worth our considering for value of 

 young queens. 



I am no agent for any man's queens, 

 but that one thing I do advocate, bet- 

 ter blood and young blood if we are 

 going in the business commercially. 



There is plenty of time in which you 

 can discuss this matter, if you wish, 

 'rather than to run it at any greater 

 length. 



Mr. Stewart — I claim that any man 

 who has ten hives of bees, and he has 

 in that yard one good queen, that will 

 raise his as good bees as ever he can 

 buy; one good queen will raise him 

 just as good bees as he can buy from 

 anybody else. 



Mr. Wheeler — I don't exactly agree 

 with you on that queen business. I 

 am glad to see you take that stand 

 though. I know you are conscientious 

 in what you say and I am here to 

 learn. 



I have got to the point where I do 

 not think blood counts for anything; 

 age counts for a great deal, but I 

 don't think blood counts for anything. 



Mr. Kannenberg — I think I am just 

 the contrary as Mr. Wheeler. 



I think, if you want new blood, you, 

 have got to take it from something 

 else as out of your own yard, be- 

 cause I know in poultry raising, if 

 you keep on raising out of your own 

 yard you will get nothing else but 

 scrub. 



Mr. Wheeler — That is just the point 

 that I think we miss on. When you 

 begin to talk bees we begin to com- 

 pare bees with poultry and stock and 

 other things. The bee is a different 

 creature; the bee is an insect, travels 

 three or four miles in all directions. 



We are not confined to one poultry- 

 yard or one farm; the queen travels; 

 the drone travels. In that way we 

 don't have to worry about the stock 

 about inbreeding bees. 

 ;.- Mr. Bull — There are a whole lot of 

 us that don't have superior drones 

 within three or four miles of us to 

 mate with our queens, as Mr. Wheeler 

 would seem to imply. 



I say you cannot get too good 

 queens, even though you buy the best, 

 you cannot get too good queens. 



It is foolish to try to take something 

 in your yard and start to build by that 

 when somebody else has spent a life- 

 time in this particular work. Go and 

 get the best you can get, the same 

 as any other kind of stock. 



Mr. France — I wish you would go 

 and make a trip with me to some of 

 the bee yards that I have been to. 

 This fall I was in a county where, to 

 my knowledge, up to three years ago 

 there had not been over two queens 

 shipped into that county for years. 

 European foul brood broke out and it 

 went, within twenty days, to almost 

 every yard. 



These two parties were surrounded 

 with European foul brood; it showed 

 in only a few hives in their yard;, 

 and, when they took those queens 

 away and requeened, it disappeared 

 in those yards. 



Then I took a flying trip from there 

 as I was so near to where my son, 

 was, at the University in Minnesota; 

 and, when I reached the Experimental 

 Farm where they are sending out 

 queens, it would do one's eyes good to 

 see those big fat fellows; the workers 

 were as big as the queens where I had 

 been before. 



Another yard: On the opposite side 

 of the county, some twenty -eight miles 

 I think from there, farther east, a 

 man, with over 200 colonies of bees, 

 had bought, each year, one or two 

 queens and and had been requeenlng 

 in his yard. He was buying queens 

 not as good as he already had. 



European foul brood broke out there 

 and, in about from twelve to twenty 

 days, he had plenty of it. 



I said: "Mr. Fleming,, something has 

 got to be done." 



W^e bought queens from different lo- 

 calities, not introducing them promis- 

 cuously, but kept a record of them. 

 Some of those queens gave way to the 

 disease; some other queens showed 

 here and there a cell, and, from one 

 breeder where he had only three 

 quens, they were put in some of his 

 worst infected colonies, not a cell of 

 the disease appeared. 



I am at sea where or how European 

 foul brood spreads. 



A neighbor, over the hill three miles 

 away, with 80 colonies, infected brood; 

 ttueens from several breeders, and 

 among them some from the same 

 party. ' 



There are disease resisting strains. 

 While I was in New York one of the 

 Inspectors, who was surrounded with 

 European foul brood, was without it in 

 his yards. I asked him the cause for 

 it; and, when we found the cause, the 

 state of New York took advantage of 



