74 DR. miller's 



A. The probability is that your neighbor's drones will be 

 obliging enough to meet most of your queens. Can't you get him 

 to change to Italian blood? 



Q. Would you advise rearing drones and queens from the 

 same mother? 



A. It will be better to rear queens from your very best 

 colony and drones from a few of the next best. Yet if you should 

 try to rear queens and drones both from the same colony it is 

 not certain that much harm would come from it, for the young 

 queens would be likely to meet drones from other colonies, per- 

 haps from a colony a mile or more away. 



Q. I thought I saw a few black drones in an Italian colony. 

 Do you think I was right, or was I fooled in the kind of bees? 



A. Nothing strange about it. Drones are freebooters, and in 

 prosperous times will be accepted in any colony. So black drones 

 may have come from some other colony. It is lalso true that pure 

 Italian drones are sometimes very dark when the workers are 

 properly marked. 



Q. Are the drones from a mismated Italian queen still pure 

 Italian, or are they hybrids? 



A. It is generally considered that the drone progeny is not af- 

 fected by the mating of the queen, although some maintain that 

 the blood of the queen may be so affected as to affect the char- 

 acter of the drone progeny slightly in the direction of the drone 

 which the queen met. 



Q. I have one colony that has two kinds of drones. About 

 half show yellow bands, while the others do not. The workers do 

 not all show three yellow bands. What race are they? 



A. The drones are not uniform, and only the workers are re- 

 lied on to decide purity. Your colony of bees that do not all show 

 three yellow bands is hybrid unless some bees have entered 

 from other hives — a thing that often occurs. To be sure entirely, 

 examine the young bees that have not left the hive; if all of these 

 have three yellow bands you may count them Italians. 



Q. About how many drones should there be in a healthy 

 colony? 



A. Some think it best to try to keep them down altogether, 

 except in one or more of the best colonies. I think G. M. Doolit- 

 tle allows to each colony what drones they can rear in a square 

 inch of drone-comb. 



Q. When should the drones be caught? Why are there so 

 many when it is only necessary for them to meet the queen once? 



