No. 6. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 705 



attendant excitements dispelled, and a method for controlling 

 swarming either by clipping wings, or shaking bees, or both, be 

 shown, a great step will be made. With constant instruction in 

 Apiculture at Farmers' Institutes we may look for improvement of 

 tbe methods of Bee-keeping in our rural districts. For the oppor- 

 tunity to effect this advancement we owe our thanks to the Hon. 

 A. L. Martin, and for the origin of the general crusade of Apicul- 

 tural education in the State College as well as in the State Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture, to our efficient and worthy President, Prof. 

 H. A. Surface. 



IMPROVEMENT OF HONEY-BEES. 



By Frank Benton, (In Charge of Agriculture, U. S. Department of Agriculture.) 



Before a body of practical men engaged in the cultivation of 

 honey-bees for profit chiefly, without, perhaps excluding the pleas- 

 ure and interest to be derived from the keeping and handling of these 

 insects, I judge that a presentation of this subject in a manner such 

 as will appeal to the conditions and limitations under which most of 

 us are obliged to work, with specific recommendations as to what 

 may be practically carried out in our own apiaries, will be a much 

 better plan than to present, theoretically and abstractly, any scheme 

 for the improvement of bees through a complicated and perhaps long 

 series of breeding experiments. With this main purpose before me, 

 1 ask your consideration of certain conclusions which I have reached 

 after more than forty years' work in the apiary, during over thirty 

 years of which I have been engaged in the rearing of queen bees 

 of various races and crosses between those races. Personal ex- 

 aminations, and, in some instances, several years' experience, in the 

 native lands of nearly all of the races in common cultivation in this 

 country, has assisted me considerably in arriving at conclusions of 

 a definite character, and reasonably satisfactory to myself. Like- 

 wise, the experiments that I have made in crossing various types 

 during this period, and particularly during the twenty years past, 

 have led me to some conclusions which I think may be profitably 

 employed in our selection of breeding stock. 



The subject naturally divides itself into: First, the selection of a 

 race or breed; second, the selection of individual queens to breed 

 from; third, the methods employed in rearing queens; and, fourth, 

 the selection of drones, or male bees. 



SELECTION OF RACE OR BREED. 



Caucasians for Beginners. — One of the first points suggesting 

 itself to a person about to begin the cultivation of bees is what race 

 or breed is best, and, while I would not suggest that one having no 

 experience should undertake the work of improving the race or 

 breeds which have been cultivated for so many years by those of 

 long experience and accurate knowledge of bee-life, still, the prac- 



45—6—1905 



