ILLINOIS STATE BEE-KEEPERS' ASSOCIATION 



99 



that individual difference in colonies of 

 "bees, just as much as there is in the 

 human race or any animal life. Es- 

 pecially now, in this age of European 

 foul brood, we should select those that 

 show diseasew resisting strength. 



Now before we drop this subject: 

 If you please, we have Father Yaeger 

 with us, who has charge of the Min- 

 nesota University. We would like to 

 hear from Father Yaeger; have him 

 tell us something about what Minne- 

 sota is doing in the way of better- 

 ing conditions. 



Father Yaeger — I was very much in- 

 terested in the discussion, about in- 

 troducing new blood into our apiaries. 

 The point was well taken. With scrub 

 queens we cannot go on with bee- 

 keeping; in the first place we won't 

 get any returns. 



The importance of young queens is 

 really underestimated. 



If I put it the other way: The bee- 

 keepers as a rule, they think they have 

 good queens, whereas, they have not. 



We are naturally inclined to think of 

 our bees, they are the best; the same 

 as we have the best cows; the best 

 horses, the best automobile; all is the 

 best; I will not deny the fact that 

 most of our queens nowadaj^s are 

 mostly scrubs, and I can prove why. 



In the first place, our queens are 

 scrubs, because they are inbred. Now 

 this is not merely a supposition, but 

 there is a great deal of evidence to 

 support this statement. It stands to 

 reason that, where one man keeps an 

 apiary, ten or twenty hives, at a dis- 

 tance from his neighbor, those queens 

 should be inmating in his yards for 

 two, five, ten years, and I know of 

 apiaries where the queens have never 

 been changed, where the yard has 

 been inbred for more than twenty 

 years. The law of nature is that any 

 inbred animal — the longer you in- 

 breed the more they deteriorate. 



If you plant some corn from your 

 own field from the same seed, it will 

 run out; different grades work won- 

 ders for a few years and then run out. 

 Take it with potatoes, it is the same; 

 for a few years there will be a won- 

 derful crop, of fine quality, and then 

 it runs out. Nature hates inbreeding 

 and the punishment is nature pro- 

 vides ultimate extinction. 



In the human race, it is proven that 

 when human kind inbreeds, cousins 

 marry or intermarry in, same family, 



you find insanity, imbecility, weakness 

 of mind. 



So it is with the bees; queens in- 

 bred are not good. 



The problem with you gentlemen 

 and with me, is where to get good 

 queens; how to get them to apiaries 

 and how to requeen your yards. 



I find out, as a rule, bee-keepers, 

 when they meet, they like to have de- 

 tailed statements; they like to have 

 you go into the very particulars of 

 how those things are to be done. 



In the first place, where should you 

 get your queens? 



I have bred quite a number of 

 queens, and I know when you go to 

 our nuclei and pick out thirty or 

 forty or fifty queens a day, no matter 

 how careful you are in breeding those 

 queens, fully one -third will not be up 

 to standard, and by and by you begin 

 to read it as plain as a newspaper, 

 which queen is good and which is not. 



If raisers of queens go through that 

 same experience, I wonder if they dis- 

 card those worthless queens or ship 

 out those they can get a dollar for. 

 After they have gone to the trouble 

 of raising those queens, I wonder if 

 they discard tho?e they know to be 

 worthless. 



What is needed in all our states, 

 really, is that the state or agricultural 

 schools will take care of raising 

 queens and providing them to the bee- 

 keepers of the state at practically cost. 



The state is the only institution that 

 is interested in you and your stock. 

 Naturally queen raisers are more or 

 less interested in the returns in cash. 



We have heard so much in the 

 northern part of the country, that "We 

 can't raise our queens here; we must 

 get them from the south; they will 

 have to be imported from a warmer 

 country; we must ship them in here." 

 This language is prevalent now 

 throughout the northern states. 



Gentlemen, we can breed just as 

 many and as good queens right here 

 as they breed down south. 



I have heard it said: "Our season is 

 too short." It takes three weeks to 

 raise a queen from the egg until she 

 is ready to take charge of the colony, 

 While the queens are being bred, 

 warm weather comes and the honey 

 flow. 



Have we not three weeks in this 

 country, and, if we have, the season is 

 long enough to raise queens. 



