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so Is this: If the queen to be superseded (as is generally the case) 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 fall 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 season. 

 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 niany 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. 



IMPEOVING THE QUALITY OF TOUB BEES; THAT TWO-HDNDBED-DOLLAB BOOT 



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. 



