138 THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW 



In this wa\- the queen is practically raised from the egg, being- 

 hatched with queenless bees who are anxious for a queen, and who 

 will start cells around the eggs before they are hatched, and then 

 they are returned to a strong colony about as soon as they are' 

 hatched, so it seems to me that they have about the best chance to 

 make good that it would be ])ossible to give them. 



GRAFTING NOT NECESSARV. 



I have grafted man\- hundred cells with success, but it always 

 seemed as if it might hurt the baby larvce to handle it, and change it 

 from its original warm cradle to another which might not be quite 

 so warm, or the food might be a little different, or any one of a 

 dozen other chances might do it some harm. Hy this method there 

 is no handling", transferring or anything of the kind, and with me 

 results have been fine queens. I generally re-queen by the ripe cell 

 method, which is very sure and takes little time. It would seem 

 that nearly any one who needed from fifty to one hundred queens 

 in 3. season could by this method raise what queens he needed, for 

 less than half of the money he would have to pay for untested 

 stock, with the chances in his favor for better stock. 

 Marion, X. Y. 



Improving Your Bees While Producing Honey. 



GEO. B. HOWE. 



(Continued from March number.) 



HABS TO BRZ:Z:i> ITAI.IANS TRUE TO COI.OR. 



You who have bred the Italian bee know how hard it is to g'et 

 them to breed pure as to color. It is "select'' or they will degener- 

 ate l)ack to the Black bee only too quickly. I am sure that if you 

 take one colony of Black bees, put it into an apiary of pure Italians, 

 and let them alone, in a few years they will degenerate back to the 

 lUack bee with all their characteristics. 



It is not that the Black bee is the strongest, but the strong 

 tendency to drift to Black. I wish to make this ijlain. Take a 

 tiock of Plymouth Rock hens and roosters. Now i)Ut a brown Leg- 

 horn rooster with them and see how quickly the Leghorn blood will 

 run out the Plymouth Rock blood. The same with black bee. The 

 drones are more active and the tendency to revert back to black 

 blood. Also the Black bees rear more drones tlian the Italian bees 

 do. So you can see that there is just truth enough in that theory 

 to be misleading. The color of the Black ]:)ee is all in her favor in 

 regard to their being able to stand more cold then the real yellow 



