146 



THE AMERICAN APICULTURIST. 



Notes and comments. 



By Henry Alley. 



Something about the Bay State Apiary 

 and what has been done there tnis year. 



Bv the time this number of the Api 

 has been mailed tlie queen-rearing bus- 

 iness at our apiary for the season of 

 1890 will be nearly over. We can say 

 that on the whole, we haA-e had a suc- 

 cessful year. Some over twelve hun- 

 dred queens have been reared and 

 shipped, and up to Sept. 20 less than 

 one dozen have proved to be otherwise 

 than satisfactory to our customers. 

 This is a record of which we feel proud. 

 Our one-hundred dollar queen from 

 which so many queens were reared the 

 past season has at this date (Sept. 20) 

 control of one of the largest and finest 

 colonies of bees to be found in any ap- 

 iary in the world. Though we have 

 taken from her colony since May 8, 

 1890, not far from 100",000 eggs, there 

 is at the present time no less than sev- 

 en L. frames well filled with brood, 

 and certainly not less than 50,000 bees 

 "on the wing." 



We expect this queen to do as well 

 in 1891 as she did in 1890. 



Orders for queens reared from her 

 eggs continue to come in at the rate 

 of one hundred per week. Of course 

 we cannot fill all orders that will be 

 sent us, though we hope to fill most of 

 them. 



Some of our friends think we have 

 done a good deal of bragging about 

 this queen. Not at all. Don't you 

 know that all advertisements have an 

 air of bragging about them ? How can 

 a business man sell his goods if he 

 does not advertise and show them 

 up in the best light possible? 



Our yellow Carniolans. 



Now permit us to do a little more 

 bragging about this new strain of bees. 

 You have all heard considerable about 

 the "coming bee." Well, if the yel- 

 low Carniolan bees do not fill the bill 

 as the coming bee, then it will be a 

 waste of time and money to even try to 

 produce the coming bee, or a strain of 



bees that will be better than those we 

 now have. For years we have expei'- 

 imented in crossing the new races of 

 bees for the purpose of improving, if 

 possible, the races and strains of bees 

 we all have had in our apiaries so long. 

 Nearly all progressive beekeepers 

 know well that the Italian and Carni- 

 olan races are superior in all respects 

 to the brown, or black German bee. 

 Such is the fact, nevertheless, though 

 some people have not found them so. 

 Does any sensible man dare say that 

 if we continue to propagate from the 

 hest strains year after year that no im- 

 provement in our bees will be the re- 

 sult? 



Now suppose there is in the apiary 

 a colony of bees that is doing a good 

 deal better than any other, or much 

 better perhaps than most of the others. 

 This one colony and its history we will 

 make a record of. By and by we find 

 colonies that are working hard, stor- 

 ing honey may be, while other colo- 

 nies that have an equal chance are do- 

 ing nothing. Now suppose we use the 

 queen in that best colony to rear other 

 queens from, and for drones select a 

 queen from one of the hest working col- 

 onies. Are we not likely to get all the 

 good qualities of these bees transmit- 

 ted to their progeny ? At any rate, -this 

 is the principle that is being carried out 

 at the Bay State queen-rearing apia- 

 ries. Now suppose we go on year after 

 year rearing queens in the helter-skel- 

 ter way that is being done in some of 

 the apiaries of this country, what will 

 be the result? I need not say, pur- 

 chase the fifty-cent queens from the 

 cheap queen dealers and you will soon 

 get all you want of inbred bees and 

 queens. 



Our beautiful yellow Carniolan bees 

 and queens are not the result of breed- 

 ing in, but the result of very careful 

 breeding and selection. 



We expect to send out in the season 

 of 1891 about two thousand of the fin- 

 est yellow Carniolan queens that can 

 be reared. 



Out of all the queens of this strain 



