70 ALEXANDER'S WRITINGS ON PRACTICAL BEE CULTURE 



self? I am sure it has always paid me well, heretofore, to do so, and 

 I do hope that this costly experiment that I have just made will save 

 many of you from a like experience. As I have written before, it is 

 so easy to get the best of young queens now that have been reared 

 from extra good honey-gathering strains that we have no excuse what- 

 ever for keeping old inferior queens in our apiary; and I want to ask 

 those of you who advocate letting their bees do their own superseding 

 it it would not have been mucli better for me to supersede those 107 

 queens last summer, at an expense of about $65, than to lose at least 

 $400 worth of bees in leaving it for the bees themselves to attend to. 



KEEPING TBACK OF THE AGE AND QUALITY OF THE QUEENS. 



In the August issue of the Review, 1904, is published an article I 

 wrote on keeping track of the age and quality of our queens, which 

 is well worth more than a year's subscription to some of you who 

 take that paper; and for the benefit of those who take Gleanings only 

 I will copy a part of said article: 



TIN TAGS FOE SHOWING AGE AND QUALITY OF QUEENS. 



"Something like 30 years ago I cut out a lot of pieces of tin — some 

 round, some half round, and some square, about one inch in diameter; 

 and whenever I find a young queen commencing to lay I put one of 

 these tags on the front of the hive on the left-hand corner, about two 

 Inches from the bottom. It is put on with a carpet-tack through the 

 center, and is easily taken off with my knife; and it follows that queen 

 to every hive she is ever put Into. If she proves to be a choice queen 

 the tag is put a few inches higher up on the corner of the hive; and 

 if very choice, still higher. If she is Inferior in any way it is put 

 over toward the middle of the hive; if very poor it is put clear over 

 to the other side. I use only one shape of tag each summer, with 

 all the queens of that summer's rearing. The next summer I use an- 

 other shape, perhaps round or square; then when I walk through the 

 apiary I can tell at a glance the age and quality of every queen in 

 the yard; and then when I have surplus queens on hand I can go right 

 to the hives that contain my poorest queens and supersede them at 

 once without having to open any hive unnecessarily. You see I can 

 tell at any time. I see by the fronts of the hives just how many 

 queens I have of a certain age, also their quality. If you will adopt 

 this way of keeping track of your queens you will soon weed out the 

 poor ones, and find it a great advantage to you to do so." 



There, friends, I almost beg of you to take my advice in this mat- 

 ter, and adopt some simple method whereby you can tell at a glance 

 the age and quality of every queen in your apiary. It is not only a 

 source of much satisfaction to know the real merit of all your queens 

 when working among them, but I assure you it is also, from a dollar 

 point of view, one of much Importance. 



In regard to the proper time to supersede, I must differ with those 

 who recommend superseding in the fall. My principal reason for doing 



