GRADING 91 



Queens that have been laying heavily suffer seriously from the 

 confinement in a small cage and the journey through the mails. 

 Often they will never do as well for the buyer as they have 

 done previously, and he is inclined to feel that he has not been 

 treated fairly. As a rule, the same money invested in young 

 untested queens, will bring far better results to the buyer, as 

 well as being better for the seller. If a half dozen young queens 

 are purchased from a breeder with good stock, at least one of 

 them is quite likely to prove excellent. The best queen that 

 the author ever has known he secured as an untested queen at a 

 nominal price. There is probably no extensive queen rearing 

 yard which would part with as good a queen for fifty dollars 

 after she had demonstrated her value. In fact, she would not 

 be for sale at any price, for she would be too valuable as a breed- 

 er. Yet the chances are that, after she had demonstrated her 

 ability by outdoing everything else in the apiary for three suc- 

 cessive seasons, she would be superseded within a few weeks 

 after being sent through the mails. 



Buyers should bear in mind that old queens which have 

 laid heavily for one or more seasons, cannot be expected to re- 

 peat their former performances after a journey by mail. Such 

 queens can only be shipped safely on combs in a nucleus, where 

 they can continue laying lightly for some time. Someone has 

 compared the sudden checking of the work of a laying queen, 

 with the shipment of a cow, which is a heavy milk'er, without 

 drawing her milk for several days. Neither can be expected 

 to be as good again. 



