230 FORTY YEARS AMONG THE BEES. 



poorly is not likely to do very heavy work in the harvest. 

 The more a colony has done in the way of making prep- 

 arations for swarming, the lower will be its standing. 

 Generally, however, a colony that gives the largest num- 

 ber of sections is one that never dreamed of swarming. 



BREEDING FROM BEST. 



I am well aware that I will be told by some that I am 

 choosing freak queens from which to rear, and that it 

 would be much better to select a queen whose royal 

 daughters showed uniform results only a little above the 

 average. I don't know enough to know whether that is 

 true or not, but I know that some excellent results have 

 been obtained by breeders of other animals by breeding 

 from sires or dams so exceptional in character that they 

 might be called freaks. I know, too, that it is easier to 

 decide which colony does best work than it is to decide 

 which queen produces royal progeny the most nearly uni- 

 form in character. By the first way, too, a queen can be 

 used a year sooner than by the second way, and a year 

 in the life of a queen is a good deal. I may mention that 

 a queen which has a fine record for two successive sea- 

 sons is preferred to one with the same kind of a record 

 for only one season. At any rate, the results obtained in 

 the way of improvement of stock as a result of my prac- 

 tice have been such as to warrant me in its continuance, 

 at least for a time. 



The danger from inbreeding must not be lost sight 

 of entirely. With two or three hundred colonies kept in 

 three different apiaries it is perhaps not great. Should 

 signs of degeneracy at any time appear, it will not be 

 difficult to introduce fresh blood. 



CONDITIONS FOR QUEEN-REARING. 



Having chosen the queen from which to rear, I have 

 kept in mind that unless conditions are favorable the 



