678 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



sex depends on fertilization. For fear of being misunderstood, let me 

 repeat that my observations confirm the view that drone eggs are un- 

 fertilized, so that the first part of the Dzierzon theory remains un- 

 challenged, as far as I am concerned. The entire subject of the parthe- 

 nogenetic development of the drones is still but little understood. A 

 few facts are well known, but around these facts there has been woven a 

 mass of good and bad guesses which must be cleared up. If the theory 

 could be stripped of these surmises, the whole subject would be much 

 clearer; and one who undertakes to work on this line must drop all 

 but well-verified facts. 



There is one other line of work on bees in which I have been inter- 

 ested for some time and on which there is yet considerable work to be 

 done. According to the views of the majority of zoologists, the varia- 

 tion of animals is the result of crossing of two lines of heridity. In 

 other words, worker bees would tend to vary all the way between their 

 two parents, while drones would tend to be like their single parent. This 

 is certainly logical, but by this time we know that it is not possible to 

 figure out in advance what animals are going to do. To test this I have 

 measured something over a thousand each of drones and workers. In 

 this work I chose certain characters on the wings, for reasons which 

 need not be discussed here. Briefly my results are as follows: Drones 

 vary considerably more than workers, rather than less, as we would 

 logically conclude; and furthermore, this variation depends more on 

 the environment under which they are raised than on any inherited 

 tendency. Some as yet unpublished measurements confirm this view most 

 strongly. 



I have mentioned but relatively few of the habits of the bee, and if I 

 seem to have taken the view that our present knowledge is meager I 

 hope you will overlook it if you think me pessimistic. The study of the 

 habits of the bee are of the utmost importance to apiculture and since 

 so much remains undetermined, let us hope that many will be enough 

 interested to take up the work. My acquaintance among bee-keepers is 

 not as wide as I would wish, but let me say that the best and most 

 successful that I know are the ones who most carefully study their bees. 

 On this account I urge the necessity for still more work on the habits. 



I have carefully avoided a discussion of modern appliances in bee- 

 keeping, and especially cut very short any mention of queen rearing, 

 since this subject will be ably discussed tomorrow by a man who knows 

 that subject better than I do. It is not because I undervalue the practical 

 side of bee-keeping that I have confined my remarks to more theoretical 

 matters, but because I fear that most apiarists rather undervalue the so- 

 called theoretical work concerning the bee. I hold that one depends on 

 the other and neither one alone will ever be a full success. This is my 

 justification in giving expression to the views and facts here spoken. 



