except tliose described by our friend Alley, 

 that duplicate themselves always in tlieir 

 queen progeny (?). He further remarks: 

 "Friend Moon says be has no queens that 

 will duplicate themselves." True, friend 

 Alley. That statement was based upon our 

 own experience of Ifi years. During that 

 time we have received queens from nearly 

 every breeder in this country, even from 

 friend Alley, and they were no more uniform 

 in color than was the old lady's figure. 

 Hence we inferred that noqueens will dupli- 

 cate themselves in their queen progeny every 

 time. We should be sorry indeed to say that 

 we had such queens, and upon a trial to have 

 it found out they did not bear tiie recom- 

 mendation given them ! We certainly think 

 they would be justified in saying, that we 

 eitlier were ignorent of what a queen was, or 

 that we intended to deceive ! While we do 

 claim to breed as fine, and as pure queens as 

 any one, we iiave none of those unvarying 

 "princesses," neither do we think there is 

 one in this country, judging from experience. 

 The most uniform queen mother we ever 

 knew, was one received from Dr. Larch, of 

 Mo. One-half of her queens very strongly 

 represented their mother queen. Her queens 

 were a tan or light chestnut in color, and 

 every good reliable and practical breeder, 

 knows that these colors in queens are excel- 

 lent; at least they are the colors that suit 

 lis. We have generally found their workers 

 excellent. 



TEST OF PURITY. 



We cannot rely upon the color of a queen 

 for a test of purity. Our only and safe 

 dependence is upon the uniform markings 

 of the workers. By this only can we judge 

 of their purity. If they bear the 3 distinct 

 yellow bands they are considered pure; they 

 must be industrious, of good size, peaceable, 

 hardy, prolific, &c. As to the color of the 

 workers, we prefer a golden color. There 

 are about three different shades of color in 

 the worker bee— quite dark, medium and 

 light yellow. 



COLOR OF QUEENS. 



When we penned that article as to queens 

 duplicating themselves we were aware that 

 we should get ourselves into hot water, and 

 thought of a remark we once heard a non- 

 sistent minister make. Said he, "I am going 

 down to Flowerfield and will preach in the 

 Methodist church, and it Avill be like taking 

 a dog by the tail, and throwing him into a 

 room with 40 cats— oh my, what a noise." 

 So it has been with that article. Letters have 

 reached me stating, they had queens that 

 will duplicate themselves in tlieir queen 

 progeny everytime, and friend Alley loomed 

 up from old Massachusetts, and ga.ve us to 

 understand that he bred such queens by the 

 hundreds, and that he breeds from no others. 



IMPOSSIBLE. 



Friend Alley says, like does not produce 

 like in breeding bees, any more than in the 

 breeding of any other animals. That all 

 queens will not duplicate themselves every 

 time is an established fact— the thing is " im- 

 possible." Now, if our friend is raising so 

 many of these fine queens that he says "will" 

 duplicate themselves everytime, shall we, 

 or shall we not understand him that the 



thing is impossible that he claims to be per- 

 fect in, viz: That his " queens will dupli- 

 cate themselves every time." If this is a 

 fact, all will then breed from such stock, but 

 before saying nuich more upon this point, 

 we will wait and see the result of the test. 



POOR SEASON. 



The present one has been one of the 

 poorest ever known in this country for 

 honey. The spr ng opened remarkably fine; 

 bees swarnied early and often, but have 

 made little surplus honey, and raised large 

 amounts of brood. Keports from almost 

 every portion of the state shows it to have 

 been a poor season for honey. 



Rome, Ga. A. F. Moox. 



For the American Bee Journal. 



Report from Doolittle's Apiary. 



Spring opened very early, and onr bees 

 enjoyed the fine weather bringing in pollen 

 quite freely as early as the 10th" of March, 

 which was a mouth earlier than usual. 

 Brood-rearing went on rapidly, and by the 

 10th of May our hives were as well filled , 

 with brood and bees as they generally are 

 the middle of June. At this time, apple 

 trees opened with a profusion of blossoms, 

 and our strongest colonies started queen- 

 cells and made preparations for swarming. 

 Our expections of a good honey yield from 

 apple trees were great, for we were in need 

 of lioney just then, as our bees had consumed 

 nearly all of their old stores, rearing such a 

 large quantity of bees and brood. But, alas, 

 human expectations are always liable to 

 disappointment, and this proved no excep- 

 tion to the case. With the 13th of May came 

 a cold storm, which lasted till the 1.5th, after 

 which we had frost (3 nights in succession. 

 The cold and frost spoiled all the flowers, 

 and we were obliged to feed 1,500 lbs. to 

 keep our bees from starving. White clover 

 commenced to yield honey, sparingly, June 

 10th, and our bees were once more in the 

 fields, so we could open hives, &c., without 

 a million of robbers to beset us on every 

 side. By this time, our bees were so reduced 

 in numbers, that we were obliged to unite 

 them down from 140 to 103, to get them 

 strong enough to gather honey to the best 

 advantage during the season. They made 

 but little more than a living till bas'swood. 

 which commenced to yield honey the 13th of 

 July, and lasted till the night of the 33d. 

 when our honey season came to an end for 

 1878. Our bees were in the best possible 

 conditi(m to take advantage of the harvest, 

 and we think we never saw honey come in 

 faster in our lives. Every available cell 

 was full of honey, and the combs grew in 

 the boxes as if by masic. The result of our 

 season's work is as follows : 



Box Honey 6,943 



Extracted .1,070 



This gives us an average of 71 lbs. to each 

 old colony. Our best colony of bees gave 

 us 161 lbs. Best extracted, 378 lbs. We 

 have at present 194 colonies, but as some 

 of them are rather light in stores, we shall 

 double down to 150, as we always believe 

 in making our bees self-supporting. 



