72 ALEXANDER'S WRITINGS ON PRACTICAL BEE CULTURE 



You all know that, a few years ago, The A. I. Root Co. told us 

 that they had found in one of their apiaries a queen whose bees gath- 

 ered far more honey than any other colony, and that they saw such a 

 decided difference in favor of this queen and her bees that they valued 

 her at $200 for breeding purposes. Now, as I was fortunate enough 

 to get 100 granddaughters of this $200 queen, and have had those 100 

 queens in our apiary for three seasons, I am sure I know something 

 of their real value. First, we have had very few natural swarms from 

 those queens — I don't think over 20 from the 100 colonies during the 

 three summers; and when extracting we have always had very heavy 

 combs from those bees, usually of nice light honey, even when our 

 buckwheat was in full bloom. I am sure, therefore, that the blood 

 we now have in our apiary, from that $200 red-clover queen, has given 

 us several tons of additional surplus honey. I have also had some 

 fine honey-gathering strains from other parties. 



I wish now to speak of some queens I bought 16 years ago. I got 

 12 $1.00 queens from one of the principal queen-breeders at that time, 

 which I introduced into good colonies about June 1. Although it was 

 a good season I not only got no surplus from any of them, but had 

 to give five of the twelve hives some heavy combs of honey from other 

 colonies in order to carry them through the following winter. Twice 

 since then I have bought Italian queens that were but very little better. 

 Now, suppose our apiary had been stocked with such queens as those 

 last spring. If so, instead of our having over 35 tons of honey for sale 

 this fall, we should have had to buy several tons of sugar for feed. 



How natural it would have been, if we had those miserable bees, 

 to lay all the blame on the poor season or on the poor location; or, if 

 some one had brought a few colonies of bees within five or six miles 

 of the apiary, how some would have growled about the infringement 

 on their territory, and the overstocked locality! Yes, my friends, too 

 many of you have allowed your bees to degenerate into a miserable 

 lot of hybrid mongrels that are not worth the room they occupy In 

 the bee-yard. 



Young Italian queens reared from the very best honey-gathering 

 strains are now so cheap that I am very sure none of you can afford 

 to take your chances on going through another season with poor stock. 

 I will admit it takes some money and some work to requeen an apiary; 

 but if rightly done it will pay you well, even the first summer. Then 

 see what a fine yard you will have afterward. 



In answering some of those other questions I will say, first, the 

 season is of more importance than any other one thing; then the strain 

 of bees; the management; and, after these, the location and some other 

 less important matters. 



My friends, there is no luck and chance in bee-keeping. If your 

 bees don't give you any surplus, pry into every thing connected with 

 them until you know the reason why. I can not understand how some 

 men can be so indifferent to the most vital parts of their business. 



