the breeder of queens to avail himself 

 of the doubt and only use the drones 

 from tested queens for copulation. We 

 have many nice theories, all very scien- 

 tific and supported by high authority, 

 that when thrown into the refining cru- 

 cible of actual practice, give off a little 

 base metal. 



Some few conditions in queen breed- 

 ing, such as psychical state of the bees, 

 atmospheric, and possibly electric, are 

 not always under the control of the 

 breeder. There is no doubt but the 

 shade of our queens is dependent in a 

 great measure upon the state of these 

 conditions. Until some apistical ge- 

 nius steps to the front with a more 

 available and practical plan of fertil- 

 ization in confinement than has yet 

 been offered, queen-breeders will be 

 compelled to rely on the old-fashioned 

 process of copulation on the wing ; and 

 as long as this old-fogy plan exists, it 

 is highly important to have the sur- 

 roundings of your apiary as free from 

 impure drones as possible. 



With pure stock to breed from, and 

 all the intelligence, science, tact and 

 skill that can be brought to bear upon 

 it, I have great hopes that the Italian 

 bee of a few years hence will be far 

 superior to anything we have now. 



Augusta, Ga. 



For the American Bee Journal. 



Adulteration, Pure Italians, etc. 



BY R. M. ARGO. 



Mr. Editor : I am glad to notice 

 that the Bee Journal has made vast 

 improvements during the past year, 

 and I hope it will continue to improve 

 at the same rate during the present year. 

 The reduced price should place it in 

 the hands of every bee-keeper, even if 

 he has only four or five colonies. To a 

 bee-keeper of at least 25 colonies it is 

 worth ten times its price. 



ADULTERATION. 



My honey all sold well this year. I 

 sent off one barrel at 10 cents, but af- 

 terwards had cause to wish I had not 

 done so, for the balance sold at home, 

 readily, at from 12 to 18 cents for ex- 

 tracted, and 20 for comb. This is the 

 first time for many years that I have 

 no honey for sale at this time. I have 

 generally kept back enough to have 

 honey for sale from one season to an- 

 other. 



Our state has a good law to protect 

 bee-keepers, passed by the legislature, 

 April 10, 1878, (See page 232 Ameri- 

 can Bee Journal). All it lacks is 



enforcement, which I hope it will re- 

 ceive. This law may have something 

 to do with the good sale of pure honey 

 this season. If every state had such a 

 law, not only on honey, but to protect 

 every kind of syrups and sugars, and 

 would see it enforced, we should have 

 no more vile, poisonous stuff to com- 

 pete with the sale of the pure article. 

 But too many of our laws are dead let- 

 ters on our statute books. If any one 

 doubts this let them look at the law 

 against murder in this state. I do not 

 believe that any sugar except the New 

 Orleans is safe to go into any one's 

 stomach the year round at these times 

 of poisonous adulteration by the city 

 refiners. Our revolutionary fathers 

 and mothers outlived us, but they 

 were not accustomed to anything adul- 

 terated. 



FERTILIZATION IN CONFINEMENT. 



Mr. Hashbouck, on page 385, gives a 

 new method on the above never tried 

 by me. I hate to say another word on 

 the subject, for fear, as he says,,"' It is 

 a strange fact that bee men generally 

 consider the thing so preposterous, that 

 they will not try to see whether it can 

 be done or not." 



Now I do not want any one to be dis- 

 couraged from trying all they can, from 

 any thing I have written on the sub- 

 ject, but I have tried almost every con- 

 ceivable way, and failed, and for my- 

 self I shall not bother about it any 

 longer. But if the thing is possible, 

 the man who discovers a safe and re- 

 liable method of controling the impreg- 

 nation of the queen with a select drone 

 will confer as great a benefit to bee- 

 keepers as Langstroth did in the inven- 

 tion of movable frames, and should 

 have a gold medal awarded him, also 

 one dollar by every bee-keeper in the 

 United States, even if there are fifty 

 thousand of them. 



ITALIANS VS. BLACK BEES. 



James Heddon is all right at last on 

 the " Italian Bees," page 436. A few 

 years ago he wrote against the Italians, 

 and in praise of the blacks and hybrids 

 in such a way that I did not fully un- 

 derstand whether he was for blacks or 

 hybrids. 



In the fall of 1877, while removing 

 some hybrids, as I do every fall, I sent 

 him an extra prolific one, thinking that 

 was his favorite bee, but in due time 

 I received a postal from him stating 

 that I had misunderstood his artiete ; 

 that he was for a leather-color, pure 

 Italian. Just the sort he describes in 

 the above article. I do not differ with 

 him a whit in this last article, for I 



