1897 



THE AMERICAN BEE KEEPER. 



135 



beauty upon the part of breeders, in 

 which strife the more desirable points 

 were lost sight of. Actual degenera- 

 tion has been permitted in prolificness, 

 money -gathering qualities, etc., while 

 beauty alone was sought and attained. 

 In order to give them a thorough test 

 we purchased over four dozen tested 

 golden queens at a cost of about f 100,- 

 00. We are now free to say that with 

 us they have been a miserable failure. 

 Ten per cent, of them during the first 

 year became drone layers ; not one in 

 fifty could at any time show a brood 

 nest as even and compact as an aver- 

 age queen of " scrub" stock. During 

 the past three years not more than a 

 half dozen have built up from three 

 frame nuclei to full colonies upon 

 their own resources, while others in 

 the same yard, three-banded Italians, 

 hybreds and blacks, have built up, 

 cast several good, natural swarms and 

 given several hundred pounds of 

 honey. Their persistence in robbing 

 tends to keep their hives depopulated. 

 After making the test we would have 

 been glad to sell our entire s'ock of 

 yollow queens at 10 cents per dozen — 

 47 cents for the lot, but realizing the 

 swindle we would be perpetrating we 

 preferred to kill them off and turn 

 the comV>s over to other stock less 

 fancy but with a busiuess capacity to 

 make profitable use of them. 



Clubbing List. 



We will send the American BkeKkepkk with 



the — PUB. PRCE. BOTH. 



American Bee Journal, (-31 00) 81 35 



Bee-Keeper's Review. (1 00) 1 35 



Canadian Bee Journal, (1 00) 1 :J5 



Gleaningrs in Bee Culture, (1 00) 1 .'^5 



"How TO Manage Bees," a 50c 

 book, and the American Bee-Keep- 

 ER a year for only 60c. 



Bee Notes. 



BY ED. JOLLEY. 



George L. Vinal says in Crleanings 

 that " queens raised late in the season 

 are superior to queens raised earlier 

 in the season. He finds them larger 

 as a rule, and not so apt to swarm the 

 first season ; they build up quicker in 

 the spring ; are better workers and 

 winter better." I have heard this 

 claim made before, and although I 

 know no reason why it should be so I 

 am inclined to think there is some- 

 thing in it. The best queen I ever 

 owned was an untested queen I got 

 late in the fall of 1893 from W. Z. 

 Hutchinson, Who can give us a good 

 sensible reason why late reared queens 

 are the best ? 



The value of drawn combs in the 

 sections for securing a good crop of 

 honey has long been known, and he 

 who was fortunate enough to have a 

 good supply of sections containing 

 drawn combs on hand at the beginning 

 of the white honey flow always con- 

 sidered them as good as " wheat in the 

 mill." 



Considerable space has been devot- 

 ed to this subject of late in the Bee 

 Keepers' Review. Its discussion 

 brought out this among other things, 

 that the buckwheat or dark fall honey 

 which is usually slow sale and low 

 price, could be very profitably utilized 

 by managing to have combs started or 

 foundation drawn ouL in the sections, 

 and stored away to be used for secur- 

 ing a much larger crop of white honey 

 the next season. 



The subject of drawn combs takes 

 us naturally to that of the new deep 



