to be found, and who is to blame V The 

 honey bee is just as susceptible of im- 

 provement as any other stock, and the 

 question is asked how we shall proceed. 

 Our method is to select with care from 

 the apiary the strongest and most vig- 

 orous of both drones and queens ; upon 

 this will rest the secret of success. 



In queens we choose those possessing 

 the greatest number of qualifications, 

 without regard to color, but her progeny 

 must be uniformly marked and good 

 workers, with peaceable dispositions. 

 If this can be attained, even with the 

 bright golden color of the workers, we 

 do not object. In selecting drones they 

 must be bred from queens of undoubted 

 purity, possessing all the qualifications 

 belonging to the Italian bee ; they must 

 be strong and vigorous, and marked 

 uniformly with the dark copper-colored 

 bands, avoiding every time drones of a 

 bright yellow. The drones must be 

 large and active, as greater vitality is 

 imparted from the male than the female. 

 We avoid breeding from drones where 

 the queens have met with hybrid or 

 black drones. Dzierzon or no Dzierzon, 

 for such we have no faith in or use for. 



In crossing with relatives, this, to a 

 certain extent, can be avoided. How- 

 ever, we do not consider it so injurious 

 if proper care has been taken formerly 

 in crossing. The question of in-and-in 

 breeding 1 believe has never been set- 

 tled by the uniform custom of any large 

 number of breeders. The practice in 

 the old country with respect to horses 

 and cattle appears to be once in and 

 once out, avoiding, if possible, incest. 

 It has been the custom of our people 

 to practice twice in and once out; tins 

 custom has been highly received by 

 breeders of the old country, although it 

 has not been altogether reduced to any- 

 thing like uniformity among American 

 breeders. By in-and-in breeding is un- 

 derstood to imply the union of near rel- 

 atives, avoiding kindred of the first de- 

 gree. It is a well-known fact that long 

 continued in-breeding, without great 

 care, wbuld tend to diminish the con- 

 stitution ; therefore, it is very essential 

 to breed out to strangers to keep up the 

 size and other qualities ; this can be 

 accomplished by careful selection of 

 breeding stock. When the desired end 

 is accomplished, we can breed back to 

 kindred. By this process we get the 

 most substance in the least compass. 

 It is a fact that many of the in-bred 

 horses have exhibited most wonderful 

 strength, which has induced many 

 breeders to follow. Some of the finest 

 and most valuable horses and sheep 

 have been bred and inter-bred through 

 kindreds for many generations. The 



same law operates the same when ap- 

 plied with proper care to the honey bee ; 

 but to maintain that high degree of ex- 

 cellence we should draw often from 

 imported stock, and test their breeding 

 qualities before we attempt to use them 

 as breeding stock. I have found the 

 best cross to come from a home-bred 

 queen, and drones from an imported 

 mother. In crossing this way, we get a 

 higher grade of excellence, and retain 

 many of their original qualities. It 

 has been, and is now, the custom of 

 many of our breeders to breed almost 

 exclusively for color, which, in our es- 

 timation, has reduced some of their best 

 qualities. Instead of improving them, 

 it has in some points weakened them. 

 One of the great drawbacks in the way 

 of successful improvement is in flood- 

 ing the country with cheap untested 

 queens— " dollar queens." We have 

 not space or time to give a faint idea of 

 the amount of injury it has done in 

 stopping the progress of improvement. 

 We will only mention one or two of its 

 leading features and their results : 



Mr. A has spent largely, both in time 

 and money, in procuring the. best and 

 purest stock he could get ; besides he 

 buys up and Italianizes all the black 

 bees within his range in order to breed 

 his bees purely and improve his stock. 

 After testing them, he sells them at a 

 moderate price, knowing them to be 

 pure. Mr. B, his neighbor, is anxious 

 to keep a few bees, and, believing the 

 Italian bee to be superior, at the same 

 time wishing to save a dollar, he sends 

 to a dollar queen breeder and gets a 

 queen. He introduces it safely; but 

 being a novice in the business, cannot 

 tell whether his queen is pure or purely 

 mated ; but the queen proves to be a 

 hybrid of the lowest type, and Mr. B 

 does not know it, but Mr. A has found 

 it out to his sorrow. He has found 

 many of his young queens impurely 

 mated ; he at once seeks to find from 

 whence it came ; he finds that Mr. B 

 has obtained a dollar queen, and, upon 

 examining them, finds them a heavy, 

 strong colony of hybrids, which is gen- 

 erally the case with such a cross, and, 

 of course, the swarm is alive with 

 drones— enough to seed a whole State. 

 Now, gentlemen, you can form some 

 idea of the damage that dollar queen 

 man has done not only Mr. A, but per- 

 haps a dozen more in the same place. 

 That Mr. A, who has been to the trou- 

 ble to Italianize his bees, has suffered 

 the same fate from the hybrid drones 

 purchased, perhaps, of some of our 

 great bee men, who sell the Italian bee. 



Here, gentlemen, is but a faint view 

 of the facts that no candid man will 



