536 FIFTY YEARS AMONG THE BEES 



average. I don't know enough to know whether that is 

 true or not, but I know that some excellent results have 

 been obtained by breeders of other animals by breeding 

 from sires or dams so exceptional in character that they 

 might be called freaks. I know, too, that it is easier to 

 decide which colony does best work than it is to decide 

 which queen produces royal progeny the most nearly uni- 

 form in character. By the first way, too, a queen can be 

 used a year sooner than by the second way, and a year 

 in the life of a queen is a good deal. I may mention that 

 a queen which has a fine record for two successive sea- 

 sons is preferred to one with the same kind of a record 

 for only one season. At any rate, the results obtained in 

 the way of improvement of stock as a result of my prac- 

 tice have been such as to warrant me in its continuance, 

 at least for a time. 



The danger from inbreeding must not be lost sight 

 of entirely. With two or three hundred colonies kept in 

 three different apiaries it is perhaps not great. Should 

 signs of degeneracy at any time appear, it will not be 

 dif^cult to introduce fresh blood. 



CONDITIONS FOR QUEEN-REARING. 



Having chosen the queen from which to rear, I have 

 Icept in mind that unless conditions are favorable the 

 royal progeny of the best queen in the world may be very 

 poor. Queen-cells must be started when the weather is 

 sufficiently warm, when bees are gathering enough to 

 make them feel that there is no need to stint the royal 

 larv?e in their rations, and until near the point of 

 emergence it is much better that the cells shall be in the 

 <:are of_a strong colony. So I do not begin operations 

 for queen-rearing until about the time that bees inclined 

 to swarming would begin to make preparations therefor. 



REARING QUEENS IN HIVE WITH LAYING QUEEN. 



It would be too long a story to enumerate all the 

 plans I have used in queen-rearing. I have reared ex- 



