and tts Economic Management. 73 
plan was first given in the American Bee-Keeper a few 
months before that journal ended its useful career. 
Sometimes a fresh strain, resulting from an imported 
queen, with her descendants successively mated to the 
selected drones, is kept under observation for five years 
or more before a selection is made. It is only when a 
queen is first used as the breeder for the season that she 
is registered, although of course notes and observations are 
made in the meantime. 
I have shown the necessity of making a definite selection, 
and we have now to consider 
What constitutes a Good Queen. 
The reader should set up a Standard of Proficiency, and 
then strive his utmost to work up to it. He may not do 
just so well as he would like to, but he will be all the 
better, and will succeed better for trying to reach the goal 
in front of him. 
Without a good queen presiding in every colony our 
best plans are likely to go astray. She is the one essential 
item of force behind all our manipulations. 
Having procured good queens, and being assured we 
can rely upon them to perpetuate their superior qualities 
through each succeeding generation, we have yet to 
consider that the best queen going may be worn out by 
intensive management after one. season of full work. 
The bee-keeper who, under average conditions, secures 
his 50 lbs. or less yearly from each stock, is content to say 
his queens are good for at least three years. But we must 
aim to have those three years produce rolled into one. 
Instead of a queen that may maintain three-fourths of one 
set of combs occupied with brood, we require queens that 
will fill two or three sets of stock combs by the time the 
first honey-flow is in evidence, reducing to one set at 
