THE AMERICAN APICULTURIST. 



161 



If Mrs. Baker would piircliaso one 

 imported queen and rear queens from 

 her eggs, she woukl have a good many 

 dark queens to kill; all of them, in 

 fact. Yet, we have found that even 

 the darkest queens reared from an im- 

 ported mother prochice, when mated 

 to yellow drones, handsomely marked 

 worker bees. 



We call queens pure, regardless of 

 their color, when their worker progeny 

 are all uniformly marked, that is, when 

 all the worker bees show what are 

 called three yellow bands. A pure 

 Italian queen is not judged by her 

 color, but b}^ her worker progeny. 



We have in the Bay State a[)iary 

 two queens : one is a light straw color ; 

 the other is a dark leather color. 

 The bees from both queens are exceed- 

 ingly handsome. But those from the 

 darkest queen are a good deal hand- 

 somer than those from the golden 

 colored queen. While one queen was 

 mated to a yellow drone, or a drone 

 that came from what we call a pure 

 mother, the other queen probably 

 mated to a queen from some other col- 

 on}^, or, perhaps, both queens may 

 have mated drones from the same 

 mother. 



We must say one word about the 

 " sundown" business. Yes, ma'am, 

 we say do certain work at sundown. 

 If we have not stated the reasons 

 therefor, please listen while I do so 

 and for your special benefit as I am 

 sure all other readers of the ApI un- 

 derstand them. 



We use tobacco smoke to introduce 

 virgin queens. When a colony has 

 been fumigated with tobacco smoke 

 (excei)t while bees are gathering 

 honey) they are not in condition to 

 defend themselves against robber 

 bees. Now for that reason we intro- 

 duced virgin qeeens just before dark. 

 Before morning the bees recover from 

 the effects of the smoke and all dan- 

 ger of the colony being robbed is 

 averted. 



We introduce queens at all limes 

 in the day as Mrs. B. does, but we do 



not use tobacco smoke in tlie middle 

 of the day for that pui'pose by any 

 means. 



Then again, Mrs. B , we do a good 

 deal of other work between sunrise- 

 and sunset, and put off introducing 

 queens till the last thing, and we find 

 it much less work to do it at night 

 than we do in the middle of the day, 

 and will say that it i-equires no more 

 time to do it at sundown than it does 

 at any other time. Have I made the 

 ''sundown" work clear? — Ed. J 



A Visit to the Bay State apiary and' 

 queen-rearing yards. 



By E. L. Pratt. 



I spent two clays and a night recently 

 under the hospitable roof of Mr. Henry 

 Alley, editor of the Api, and manager of 

 one of the largest queen-rearing, yards 

 in the country. I cannot begin, to ex- 

 press myself on the pleasure the occa- 

 sion afforded. Suffice it to say that Mr. 

 Alley is a gentleman ; Mrs. Alley and 

 all the family circle are very pleasant 

 people to meet, and one feels at home 

 on crossing the threshold of the " Old 

 Alley Homestead." 



We spent several hours talking about 

 bees from every conceivable point of 

 view, but mainly queens and queen- 

 rearing, as two breeders will. 



Mr. Alley has originated a new strain 

 of bees, which he calls ''The Yellow 

 Carniolan." They were brought about 

 by a treak of nature and constant se- 

 lecting. They are very beautiful and 

 as clever as flies. This fall has shown 

 their gathering qualities to be as good 

 as the best. The queens are large and 

 very prolific, a great many of them be- 

 ing monstrous. Mr. Ahey believes that 

 yellow is the color of pure Carniolans. 

 I do not ; yet I do not understand why 

 they answer so quickly to the "yellow 

 call" when the greatest of care in breed- 

 ing will not keep them from showing a 

 spot or two of that color. 



Next year will be a Yellow Carniolan 

 year at both the Bay State yard and the 



