THE AMERICAN APICULTURIST. 



raents discoveiini!; at last that the 

 bees must be properl_y prepared to 

 build cells before the brood was 

 given them (it took him years to 

 find this out), and continuing step 

 by step he " added knowledge to 

 knowledge" until at last he found 

 that he had practically systema- 

 tized and could control the whole 

 business of queen-rearing from the 

 proper selection of the breeding- 

 stock to the successful shipping of 

 the queens. 



Last fall Mr. Alley decided to 

 publish his method in book form 

 and give the beekeeping public the 

 benelit of his study and experi- 

 ence, and the work is before you. 

 I will not here descant u[jou its 

 merits ; the fact that Mr. Alley is 

 its author should be a sufficient 

 guarantee of its value and worth, 

 and the beekeeper who wishes to 

 nuister his calling and fails to se- 

 cure a copy of the " Handy Book" 

 can have but a vague idea of the 

 value of knowledge. I would give 

 double the cost of any of the 

 standard works on apicultui'c in 

 order to secure them, and why? 

 Because they ai'C records of the 

 life experience of their authors and 

 for this reason worth many times 

 their cost. 



It is thought by some that Mr. 

 Alley obtained his ideas from ex- 

 ])ei'im('nts which tlicy had given 

 to the puhlic ;i, wliih' ago ; but 

 his method of ((uccn-rcaring does 

 not consist miu'cly in ))r<)[)erly 

 pr('i);uiiig the lirood and giving 

 it to llic bi'cs. On the couti-ai'V, 

 it is made up of a combination 

 of principles, beginning (as I have 



before stated) with a proper selec- 

 tion of choice stock, and passing 

 through all the different stages 

 of progress until the queens are 

 mated. 



Being thoroughly conversant 

 with his method of queen-rearing, 

 and spending, as I have, a great 

 deal of time in his apiary, noting 

 the progress and results of the 

 experiments which he is always 

 tr^dng, I feel warranted in stating 

 (as I have) that I believe that he 

 originated this method and that I 

 never saw or heard of queens being 

 reared in this way until I learned 

 it of him. 



There may be some who will 

 (piestion my motive in writing to 

 such length in this article ; to these, 

 and indeed to all, 1 would say that 

 my only interest is that of bene- 

 fiting my brother beekeepers, and 

 the time will come when all will 

 agree with me in this. I consider 

 that there are yet many things to 

 be overcome ere we may say that 

 there are not great possibilities in 

 store for us in the future ; and it is 

 only by bringing to light and dis- 

 seminating new facts that we ad- 

 vance. 



Any brother beekeeper who ma}^ 

 originate any new method or prin- 

 cii)le which will prove a benefit to 

 apiculture will find that we shall 

 endeavor just as earnestly to place 

 it before our readers as we have 

 this matter. We propose to treat 

 all alike so far as [)ossible, and 

 hope ever to be found on the side 

 of justice and right. 



The whole face of nature may be 

 covered with the most luxuriant 



