ALEXANDER’S WRITINGS ON PRACTICAL BEE CULTURE 35 
get hives of but little value except for kindling-wood, and combs fit 
only for wax, with queens from one to five years old, of all grades, 
from fairly well-mated Italians down the line to the blacks. 
But sometimes it is best to buy these almost worthless colonies in 
order to get them where their drones can be destroyed. In this case 
you had better Italianize them as soon as possible, then set on top one 
of your standard hives filled with combs, one of which contains brood; 
then put their queen on this frame of brood and put a queen-excluder 
between the hives so as to keep the queen in the upper hive; then in 
21 days take out the under hive and use it as you see fit. Your almost 
worthless colony will now be Italianized and nicely transferred to your 
standard hive. This we find is the most practical method of disposing 
of those undesirable colonies which were in hives of all forms and 
sizes, 
If your circumstances are such that you can hardly afford to sac- 
rifice a part of your surplus in making increase, then you must be care- 
ful and make only such increase as will add to your surplus. This is 
an easy thing to do where the principal harvest comes in August; but 
if it is in June, then it requires the most thorough knowledge of the 
best methods of rearing queens and dividing colonies that have ever 
been practiced, in order to make it a success. 
Those of us who produce extracted honey can make our increase 
much cheaper and easier than those who produce comb honey. With 
us we can divide our colonies in almost any way without seriously 
affecting our surplus. We always make rather more increase in June 
than we expect to put into winter quarters in the fall; then when a 
colony loses its queen, or is not what it should be, on the eve of our 
harvest we unite it with another. At this time we like to have every 
colony as strong as possible, and we care but little for weak colonies. 
DANGER OF DISEASE. 
One of the most serious objections to buying bees here and there 
around the country is the liability of bringing diseased colonies into 
your apiary. This we should ever bear in mind, and never take any 
chances that we can prevent. Then the trouble of finding bees for sale, 
and the expense of bringing them home, many times is no small matter. 
I have been all over this part of the business, and I don’t care to try it 
again. 
In regard to making our increase, it can now be done very easily 
since we can rear queens with so little trouble that it is easy to have 
all we care to use ever ready at almost any time. Then by stimulating 
breeding by feeding so as to have strong colonies ready to divide as 
early as our young queens commence to lay, we can certainly make our 
increase much cheaper than to buy undesirable bees; therefore I can 
not advise you to buy bees only in exceptional cases, but I do advise 
you to study well all the latest improved methods of rearing queens and 
making increase. 
