THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



195 



Cheap Queens Again. 



Since our editorial comments re- 

 garding clieap queens, in tiie Bee 

 Journal for Marcti Stli, we liave re- 

 ceived tlie following letters relating 

 thereto, which we publish entire, 

 omitting the names of the writers, to 

 prevent any personal controversy , only 

 desiring the arguments : 



Dear Sik.— The Bee Journal for 

 March 8 contains an editorial on 

 " The Cheap (Jueen Traffic," in which 

 you make some astonishing assertions 

 for an editor who has no axe to grind. 

 So far, I have passed all the articles 

 and comments on this " dollar queen " 

 question, unnoticed; but when I see 

 thattlie editor of the American Bee 

 JouKNAL is inclined to denounce ns 

 (untested queen breeders) as frauds, 

 and selling worthless trash at the ex- 

 l)ense of those purchasing, and at an 

 actual damage to tlie bee-keeping in- 

 terest, I cannot help but defend my- 

 self at least. Taking your editorial 

 in the whole, the above is what you 

 seem to impress upon your readers. 



Now, sir, will you please give us 

 tlie name of the " breeder, who has 

 had more experience with cheap 

 priced queens than any other in 

 America, or the world, and has prob- 

 ably reared and sold nearly as many 

 as all the others combined, etc.," and 

 why, if his opinion is, that not one 

 queen out of ten sent out, is worth a 

 cent, did he rear and sell as many of 

 them as all of the queen breeders com- 

 bined y I think you should also give 

 the name of that honest Michigan 

 breeder (in justice to him) who quit 

 after he found out that he was defraud- 

 ing his innocent purchasers. 



I do not think it is necessary for me 

 to argue this point, for I know I could 

 not convince you and those whose 

 motives are prompted by self interest 

 or prejudice ; the only point I wish to 

 arrive at, is to try to prevent your 

 readers to labor under the impression 

 that I, as abreeder of untested queens, 

 sell worthless trash and that I am de- 

 frauding those whodeal with me, and 

 the only way is to ask every one who 

 has purchased queens from me in 1881 , 

 to drop you a postal card and state 

 what kind of a queen they received 

 from me, and if 10 per cent, report 

 worthless trash, I will pay yon $100 

 for the benefit of any institution — or. 

 if you prefer, I will send you a list of 

 all and you can drop each a postal 

 card and I will pay you the cost and 

 trouble. I have reared nearly 1,200 

 queens in 1881. 



I claim to sell no queen that I would 

 not have for myself and this has been 

 my invariable rule. It is no more 

 trouble to rear good queens than it is 

 to rear poor ones, when you under- 

 stand or know how to do it, etc. 



I know it is more expensive to rear 

 queens in the North, as you cannot 

 winter nuclei, but here, mine (which 

 are all 4 or 5 frames) remain on their 

 summer stands all the winter, and 

 come out in the spring ready for busi 

 ness. 



If queens cannot be reared at$l, 

 from a selected mother, at a profit, 

 can the advocates of tested queens 

 tell us how they can rear queens fully 

 tested at S2, an"d make it pay i* 



I will conclude in saying that yon 

 may fight this "dollar queen "busi- 

 ness with legal arms, but don't make 

 your readers lielieve that all such 

 breeders are selling worthless trash, 

 etc., by citing two or three breeders' 

 experience, though one of them has 

 reared and sold as many queens as all 

 the breeders of America combined ! 



Mr. Editor: — Concerning your 

 editorial on "The Cheap Qiieen 

 Traffic," I would like to inquire if the 

 quotations which you make from ex- 

 perienced breeders tluit "not one 

 queen out of ten sent out is worth one 

 cent," and " such were not usually 

 worth 25 cents a dozen," refer to queens 

 sent out by queen breeders in general, 

 or to what is usually understood by 

 dollar queens, viz : Queens which are 

 the daughters of imported, or very 

 choice mothers, and which have just 

 begun to lay. 



If they refer to the former. I can- 

 not see how the buyer will be helped 

 by being compelled to pay a greater 

 price for his queens, for the breeder 

 who will send out superannuated and 

 worthless queens for a dollar, will 

 certainly not scruple to send out the 

 same for a higher price. If, on the 

 otlier hand, they refer to the dollar 

 queen as usually understood, and they 

 are founded in fact, we are confronted 

 by a very serious hindrance to pro- 

 gress in bee culture. For, if not one 

 in ten is worth a cent, the question oc- 

 curs : How many would have to be 

 raised, tested, and destroyed, before 

 one could be found which was really 

 valuable, and if the rearing of such 

 queens at a dollar each is found by 

 experienced breeders to be unre- 

 munerative, the price of a really 

 good queen would leave the majority 

 of bee-keepers no choice but to do 

 without them altogether V 



I have no personal acquaintance 

 with any queen breeder, but I believe 

 there are many who are too conscien- 

 tious to continue in a business which 

 is such a fraud on innocent customers 

 as the above quotations would seem to 

 indicate. 



We certainly do not want to buy 

 queens at a dollar each, with the pros- 

 pect of finding only one in fifteen or 

 twenty that is worth her price, but if 

 we pay three or four dollars for a 

 queen, we want some assurance that 

 file queen which we buy will be worth 

 the money. 



In reply to Mr. Alley's article on 

 page 151 of the Bee Journal, permit 

 me to say that while I am willing to 

 admit most, if not all he says about 

 " dollar " queens ; it seems to me he 

 has made a most ludicrous blunder in 

 winding up his article. He says : 

 "Let all the leading queen breeders 

 combine, andresolvenotto sell queens 

 less than $2 each, and not sell any 

 that are not thoroughly tested ; then, 

 if bee-keepers want a cheap article, 

 let them purchase of those who have 



not had much experience at the busi- 

 ness." 



It appears to me, from the above 

 sentence, that Mr. Alley is endeavor- 

 ing to establish a monopoly in the 

 queen rearing business, rather than 

 to make it more profitable to both 

 breeder and purchaser. 



It is evident that any apiarist of 

 ordinary skill can produce untested 

 queens, at the rate of one every 15 

 days, for each nucleus or colony,"and 

 many claim to do better than this. 

 Every apiarist knows that it takes 

 from 22 to 25 days to test a queen for 

 prolificness and the color of her pro- 

 geny ; and to test the qualities of her 

 bees will take at least 25 days more, 

 and then, it must be at a time when 

 honey is coming in freely. Now, it 

 looks strange to me that there can be 

 more profit from selling queens at $2 

 each, when it takes from 65 to 70 days 

 to rear and test them, than to sell at 

 $1 each, and produce tliem in 15 or 20 

 days. It surely does not require 20 

 years, nor 10 years, and I hardly see 

 the necessity of its taking 5 years, 

 to learn to breed bees; and I cannot 

 see the consistency in Mr. Alley's 

 making such a thrust at beginners, 

 as appears in the above sentence. 



I will offer a suggestion : Let every 

 breeder (whether he be a leading one 

 or not) who wishes to do an honorable 

 business, test thoroughly, the quali- 

 ties of the worker progeny of every 

 queen he may wish to breed from, 

 then breed from such only as are 

 valuable. Then test the young queens 

 for size, activity and prolificness, and 

 their progeny for activity and uni- 

 formity of size and color, whether 

 they are black, brown, or yellow, and 

 then sell at a living price to the 

 breeder, and I feel confident that the 

 purchaser will not be defrauded. 



We have long held to the opinion 

 that " the best is the cheapest " with 

 queens, as with everything that is 

 worth a price, and have always been 

 outspoken in our condemnation of the 

 cheap queen traffic. We have not felt 

 the necessity for condemning the 

 breeders of such " as frauds," and we 

 have not insinuated anything of the 

 kind, because we know there are 

 honorable men engaged in breeding 

 and selling them, as also honorable 

 men who have dropped the business 

 from honest convictions, having been 

 convinced that the whole thing was 

 wrong. Nor do we feel called upon to 

 give their names, and subject them to 

 criticism for having obeyed the dic- 

 tates of an honest conscience, prefer- 

 ring rather to let time prove tliem and 

 ourselves correct. There may be, and 

 probably are, unscrupulous men en- 

 gaged in breeding and selling worth- 

 less queens for tested, but this estab- 

 lishes no point except as to their un- 

 fair dealing. When convinced that 

 no better queens can be purchased for 



