No. 6. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 711 



I mean that both the queens to produce these drones and the 

 workers related to these queens, must come up to the general race- 

 characteristics, and must in these cases show most excellent quali- 

 ties as regards hardiness of constitution, general robustness, and 

 wind-power, combined, in the case of the workers, with the greatest 

 gentleness which it is possible to procure. We are endeavoring not 

 merely to secure the gentleness characteristic of the given race 

 which we have selected, but we wish exceptional gentleness within 

 that race. But it is quite impossible to .judge by the drones them- 

 selves or the queens producing them, what degree of gentleness 

 these drones may transmit. We must infer that certain drones will 

 transmit gentleness of the workers having the same blood as the 

 mother of these drones, are excellent types of gentleness of the 

 given race. These workers are the sisters of our proposed drone- 

 mother, hence aunts of the drones, and are of course in the colony 

 from which the proposed drone-breeder sprang. The half-sisters of 

 the drones themselves (constituting the worker-progeny of the pro- 

 posed drone-mother), form but a slight guide as to what qualities of 

 temperament the drones may transmit, because the good or bad tem 

 perament of these workers will have come largely (according to the 

 above theory of preponderance of male influence over tempera- 

 ment) from the drone with which the queen has mated. To judge, 

 therefore, whether the drones have gentle blood and hardy con- 

 stitutions, we must go back to the worker-progeny of the grand- 

 mother of these drones — the sisters of the drones' mother. 



It is also highly desirable that the element of prolificness should 

 not be lost to any degree, since it certainly appears reasonable that, 

 while we look to the mother of the young queens largely for this 

 quality, still on the male side considerable influence may also be 

 exercised. We may judge of the capability of drones for transmit- 

 ting prolificness by careful examination of the work of the queen 

 producing those drones. Prolificness in our young queens reap- 

 pears of course in queen-progeny in the shape of prolificness, but 

 this quality reappears in the workers as a material instinct, im- 

 pelling them to greater care in brood-nursing. It is, therefore, to 

 be reckoned with as valuable, whether we are using these young- 

 queens merely as producers of other queens or to produce colonies 

 for honey production, since the ability of the workers composing 

 the colony to care for vast amounts of brood has plainly its in- 

 fluence over the yield of surplus. 



HOW TO MAINTAIN A CYPRIO-CARNIOLAN APIARY. 



The question might be asked how we are to maintain a honey-pro- 

 ducing apiary headed by queens of one race mated to drones of 

 another, as is the case with the Cyprio-Carniolan type, which I 

 have commended as an excellent one for its hardiness, prolificness, 

 and great honey-gathering capacity. The answer is simply that the 

 home apiary (or breeding apiary) must be stocked wholly with 

 Carniolans as an apiary in which the drones for this combination 

 may be bred, and all queen breeding, or at least mating, may be 

 accomplished. A very limited number of pure Cyprian queens may 

 be kept at one of the out-apiaries, and from these Hie queen- 

 mothers are to be selected for use in securing cells for the young 

 Cyprian queens, which are then to be mated at the Carniolan yard. 



