MAY 15, 1915 



415 



.y-eiitle and good honey -f>atlierers. As fai- 

 as (hat was coneernod Ihey were fair; but 

 of course 1 couhl not judge them, since 1 

 did not get a pure one. No one can judge a 

 strain of bees unless he manages to get 

 properly mated queens. 



This is not the worst experience 1 have 

 had in buying queens. So far I got queens 

 in exchange for my money. One time 1 did 

 not. In late July, 1013, I ordered a tested 

 Carniolan queen, and sent a money order 

 for $1.50. After waiting for some time 1 

 wrote and asked why I did not get the 

 queen. As well as I can remember he said 

 he did not have any tested, but could sup- 

 ply untested. I then told him to return my 

 money. This was about November. After 

 a week or so I received a check for one 

 dollar on a small bank or at least a bank I 

 never heard of before, in New Jersey. I 

 felt pi'ctty sore by this time over the trans- 

 action; and as I would have had to pay 

 exchange or discount at any of our banks 

 to have it cashed I returned the check to 

 him and told him if he needed money bad 

 enough to keep the 50 cts. he could also 

 keep the dollar. I also suggested that he 

 could send me the money in the form of 

 an express-otfice order. But I suppose he 

 needed the money, because I never heard 

 from hirn again. 



1 am glad to say that, in my experiment- 

 ing with different breeders, I have found 

 one man who sells what he advertises. 1 

 have bought about eighteen queens from 

 this breeder, and I could not praise his bea*^ 

 too highly. They are good from start to 

 finish. The queens were all untested, and 

 a large percentage (about fifteen out of 

 eighteen) turned out purely mated. This 

 is where I get all my queens in the future. 

 It is a great thing to a man ordering 

 through the mail to know where he can get 

 what he pays for. 



How large a number of classes queens are 

 divided into! There are untested, selected 

 untested, warranted, tested, selected tested, 

 etc. It is getting to be like egg's in the 

 grocery — strictly fresh, fresh, choice, new- 

 laid, etc. 1 think this is all tommyrot. 



You can't tell from the looks of a toad 

 how far it will jump. You can tell very 

 little about a queen until she gets started in 

 a hive. I have seen queens that looked 

 good which proved useless, and small-sized 

 queens that had no beauty about them at all 

 do good work. 



To my mind there should be only three 

 classes of queens — untested, tested, and 

 breeders; and T believe when all is said 

 that is all the classes there are. 



Hamilton, Ontario. 



WHICH IS THE PERSISTENT AND DOMINANT RACE' 



BY WESLEY L. ROBERTS 



T wonder if you fully realized all that is 

 implied in the expression which you used 

 in an editorial on page 175: " The fact that 

 blacks seem to be the persistent and dom- 

 inant race." I have studied bees by day, 

 dreamed of them by night, and read both by 

 night and by day. I read that the Italian 

 bee is the bee to get, since they excel in a 

 number of different ways. And so I have 

 been going in for the Italian bee. I have 

 also been led to believe, both by study and 

 observation, that any race in its purity 

 (speaking broadly) that excels in good 

 qualities would be " the persistent and 

 dominant race." 



It would seem that the black or brown 

 bee is " the persistent and dominant race " 

 among bees. That is what you say. The 

 proof is that all others, when left to them- 

 selves, revert to the dark type. Circum- 

 stantial evidence is added in the fact, ad- 

 mitted by all, that the so-called hybrids or 

 cross-bred bees, after the first cross, show 

 a breaking-up of all good qualities, lose 

 their stamina, become constitutional weak- 



lings, and, of course, become much more 

 subject to disease than the pure bloods of 

 any race. 



Perhaps I have made a mistake in getting 

 the Italian race of bees. Would it not have 

 been better to send to Switzerland and 

 get some of the black or brown race in 

 their purity? The Helvetians probably 

 have them more pure than in any other part 

 of the earth. 



Then because they are " the persistent 

 and dominant race " in their purity they 

 would possess much constitutional vigor, 

 their stamina would not be broken by cross- 

 breeding, and so they would have vigor to 

 resist disease, the energy to gather an abun- 

 dance of honey, and ability to defend it. 



If I have made any mistake in getting 

 the Italian race of bees T should like to 

 know it as soon as possible. " The persis- 

 tent and dominant race " is the race I want, 

 because every thing in nature shows me 

 that is where to look for improvement. 



Lavalle, Wis., March 10. 



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