ALEXANDER’S WRITINGS ON PRACTICAL BEE CULTURE 73 
Above all things, don’t be discouraged when the losses come, as 
come they will; let them find you more determined than ever to push 
on until success and all its pleasures crown your years of labor. 
February, 1905. 
YELLOW VS. LEATHER COLORED ITALIANS. 
A FEW WORDS IN FAVOR OF YELLOW ITALIANS; KEEPING THE BROOD-NEST CLEAR 
OF HONEY TO MAKE ROOM FOR BROOD. 
For some time many honey-producers have shown a preference for 
the darker or leather-colored Italians. This would be all right if it 
were not that they have a tendency to degenerate back to hybrids and 
blacks when continued a few years. It is the same with bees as with 
all our domestic stock. We must have a standard to work for, and the 
color line seems to be very essential in our horses, cattle, swine, and 
poultry. Now, if we fail to keep up to well-marked Italian bees as a 
standard, then unprincipled queen-breeders can send us their hybrid 
mismated queens; and we, not having any fixed standard as to color, 
will have no chance to complain, as they can say they sent us queens 
of their dark Italian strain. 
I for one have my doubts if any of the dark strains of Italians 
are superior to our three and four banded bees—that is, taking them 
as a whole in large apiaries there are occasionally some exceptions in 
each class; but one thing we must all admit; and that is, Italian bees are 
far ahead of our blacks or hybrids in gathering honey; but in order 
to acquire the best possible results we must give them in some respects 
especial attention. Their never satisfied desire to gather honey causes 
them to fill the brood-nest early in the season; but if this honey is 
frequently removed so as to give the queen a chance to fill and keep 
filled all the combs below the supers with maturing brood, then you 
will soon have a large working force, and you are then quite sure to 
get a nice surplus; but if you neglect to keep this honey out of the 
brood-nest, then you will have a weak colony and little or no surplus, 
which will cause you to become prejudiced against all yellow bees. 
Next season make it your especial business to see every comb in 
all your colonies before you put on your supers. See that each one 
is full of brood from top to bottom and end to end; remember that 
each square inch of capped honey in those breeding combs costs you 
about 30 worker bees every 21 days. 
The convenience and time saved in looking up twenty or more 
queens a day, as we frequently do during the summer season, is quite 
an item in favor of yellow bees. Some think these bees do not winter 
as well as the darker ones. I find that, where this is the case, it is 
caused by the Italian bees crowding the brood-nest with honsy in 
August so as to stop all chance for breeding after Sept. 1; consequently 
they go into winter quarters rather weak in bees; and those they do 
have are mostly old and nearly used up. If you will remove two of 
the heaviest combs about Sept. 1, and put in the center of the hive 
