THOUSAND ANSWERS 169 



with a select tested queen, a select untested queen has nothing but 

 her looks to entitle her to a higher price, for nothing can yet be 

 told about the looks of her unborn progeny, to say nothing about 

 the performance of the name. 



A breeder is one that is considerably better than the average, 

 and so, of unusual value to breed from. 



You will see that there is chance for a good deal of looseness 

 in the whole business, especially as good looks and good behavior 

 do not always go together. "Handsome is that handsome does.'' 



Q. Is there any way to tell how good the queen- is in a weak 

 colony, during brood-rearing? 



A. No. She may lay enough eggs to keep a weak colony sup- 

 plied, but not enough for a strong colony. Yet even in a weak 

 colony a very poor queen may not keep the cells filled with eggs 

 in an orderly manner, but will skip more or less cells. Even in 

 a strong colony you cannot tell how good a queen is merely by 

 looking at her brood: The most prolific queen is not by any 

 means always the best. To learn how good a queen is you must 

 wait J:o see how much honey her bees will store compared with 

 others. 



Q. I put a full depth super on top of one of my colonies, and 

 an examination afterwards showed the queen was rearing brood 

 very extensively in the upper story, and later on I examined the 

 lower story and found that she had deserted it altogether, and 

 the cells were all full of pollen. Could you tell how this could be 

 avoided? 



A. A queen-excluder of perforated zinc will prevent the 

 queen from going up. 



Q. Will strange queens sometimes unite with a queenless 

 colony? 



A. Yes, sometimes it happens that a young queen may go into 

 another hive than her own. 



Q. One morning I found six dead queens in front of the 

 hives. Why do they have so many queens? 



A. Nature generally makes bountiful provision against dan- 

 ger of failure. Take an apple tree, one that is thoroughly filled 

 with blossoms. What if every blossom should produce an apple? 

 If there's one apple for every ten blossoms there will be a heavy 

 crop. But if there should be merely enough blossoms for each 

 expected apple, something might happen to a good many of them, 

 and there would be a shortage in the crop. Same way with the 

 bees. Hundreds of drones are reared for every one needed, so 



