stated, viz.: eight or ten dollars. Now here is a chance for a trade! I know that some bee-keepers think that my queens are not worth much, because I sell them so low: but if it will do them any good to know how it is that I can afford to sell at such low prices, I will make it known. I have all I can do in the summer to raise queens and reply to all the letters I receive; and I find it quite business enough to keep two hundred (200) nucleus hives in full operation. Talk about boasting of orders for four hundred queens! Why I have orders for more than seven hundred on my books, and they are still coming in by every mail. I was expecting to raise and ship one thousand queens this season, but cannot do it. My orders began to come in as early as last December, and one man ordered fifty as early as last March. Nearly all the orders I have received this season came from persons I supplied last season, and their friends who have seen my stock in the apiaries of former purchasers. I have plenty of letters speaking in the highest terms of my queens; and many of them, like Dr. Barnard, say they are much better than those they paid twenty dollars for. Let me say here that I sent Dr. B. his queens last fall, and the first I heard from him since, I saw in the American Bee Journal--it was of course no pre-arranged plan for him to blow Mr. Alley’s stock of Italians. I paid a certain party in June last ten dollars for a queen. A few days ago I received her, and I may safely say I never shipped a queen as poor in appearance. Nor was there any excuse for the party sending me such a queen, as she was raised last season and was taken from a full stock when sent to me. I guarantee to send out just as good queens for two dollars and a half. I do not want the reader to suppose that this article is intended as an advertisement. That is far from my design; but I feel obliged to make this statement in self defence. Last winter I read an advertisement in a western paper, from the pen of a high-price queen dealer, in which he said that he did not believe that good queens could be raised and sold for $2.50. Now, the same person has advertised them at a figure even lower than that. I can afford to raise and sell good pure queens for the price I am charging, and mean to do so as long as I can find purchasers for them, which judging from the demand for them, will be some time yet. I have, within a few weeks, bought seven queens from some of these high-priced queen breeders, none of which are any larger or handsomer than the stock I now have; nor do I believe that their progeny will prove to be any better. Only this morning I received three queens from such a breeder, two of which I returned by the next mail. I do not want any stock of that kind.