ALEXANDER’S WRITINGS ON PRACTICAL BEE CULTURE 71 
so is this: If the queen to be superseded (as is generally the case) 
is old, and beginning to fail in keeping her hive well filled with brood, 
then you stand a big chance of having a weak colony the following 
spring unless you give them a young queen before August 1. In this 
section even our young queens lay but little after Sept. 1, and certainly 
we should have a good prolific queen in every hive at least one month 
before the breeding season closes. But if you are superseding good 
queens that have kept their hives well filled with brood to the end of 
the season (simply to get a better strain of bees) then you can super- 
sede your queens almost any time during the fall; otherwise I should 
very decidedly prefer superseding all my queens early in the seagon. 
Now, my friends, think this matter over well; and in doing so 
remember that your next year’s surplus depends to a great extent on 
the quality of the queens you have in your hives this coming fall. The 
man who is careless in this matter will have many disappointments 
that he might otherwise avoid with but little trouble and expense. 
July, 1905. 
THE IMPORTANCE OF HAVING QUEENS REARED FROM THE 
BEST OF STOCK. 
IMPROVING THE QUALITY OF YOUR BEES; THAT TWO-HUNDRED-DOLLAR ROOT 
QUEEN. 
How many times during the last few years the different writers 
for our bee journals have told us the necessity of keeping young pro- 
lific queens in all our hives if we expect to get good returns! But how 
seldom have they told us of the importance of having those queens 
reared from the best honey-gathering strains of Italians that could pos- 
sibly be found! This I consider one of the most essential things con- 
nected with successful bee-keeping. 
First I will say that, of all the thousands of Italian queens that 
I have bought and reared since their first importation to this country, 
I have never sold a queen in my life, and I never expect to. We buy 
and rear only what queens we want for our own use; so hereafter, 
when I speak of the strain of bees we keep, or the strains of others, 
don’t for one minute think that I am in any way interested in selling 
queens. 
We now have what might be called a combination strain of bees, 
as they have been bred for nearly twenty years from the best honey- 
gathering strains of Italian bees that money could buy; and during 
this time I have thrown out every queen whose bees were poor honey- 
gatherers; cross or vicious in handling, addicted to excessive swarming, 
or were restless in winter quarters, wasting themselves away and com- 
ing out weak in the spring. All such colonies have been marked, and 
their queens superseded the following summer. In this way we have 
acquired as fine a strain of bees as there is in the United States. 
