1882 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



11 



IMPROVIIVG OUR BEES BY CABEFUI. 

 SELECTION IN BBKEDING. 



SOME FACTS FROM EXPERIENCE, BY FRIEND WILTSE. 



is]|HE experience of Mr. Doolitilc, as given in the 

 Oct. No. of Gle.vninos, is so much at vari- 

 ance with the known principles of breeding, 

 and the results reached by crossing two or more 

 races, that lam inclined to believe he has so ex- 

 pressed himself, for the purpose of drawing others 

 out on this subject. He says: "The first Italian 

 queen I ever saw was introduced some time in July, 

 and did not raise a drone that season; neither was 

 there an Italian drone within 12 miles of her; yet 

 none of her daughters ever produced a black bee. 

 There were hundreds of queens raised from her 

 during three years, yet none of them ever produced 

 a black bee." Previously he tells of 60 queens, du- 

 plicates of their mother, that raised no black bees, 

 though thousands of black and hybrid drones were 

 around, and-asserts that he raised them the past 

 season. In this ease he does not tell any of the 

 characteristics of these bees, and in the other he 

 does not say who owned them, does not tell any of 

 their chai-acteristics, does not in either case give 

 their color; but gives references to what he has 

 previously written for Gleanings. These numbers 

 I did not have. In the Bcc-Keepers' Magazine, Vol. p. 

 No. 7, he writes of " the first Italian queen that ever 

 came into these parts;" he says: " Not a drone was 

 raised from her that season. She was introduced in- 

 to one black stock after another, until queens were 

 obtained for the whole apiary. These queens mated 

 with black drones. Not one of these queens ever 

 produced a black bee. When the daughters of these 

 queens came to produce bees, then it was that a 

 part of the bees emerging from the cells were black. 

 According to the rule of the three bands, the bees 

 raised by the queens that mated black drones could 

 not be told from the simon-pure." No owner is 

 mentioned here; none of the characteristics of the 

 bees are given. So much for the first and second 

 grades produced by crossing the black bee with the 

 Italian. 



Of the hybrids of the black bee and the Egyptian, 

 he says: "It is said, that a cross of the black bee with 

 the Egyptian, will, in three generations, produce a 

 bee which no man can tell from the best Italian. If 

 this is so, it is probably the starting-point of our 

 Italians; but wh/ such breeding can so thoroughly 

 fix the bands, that a queen mating with a common 

 drone will not show such mating in her working 

 progeny, is more than I can tell, but know such to 

 be the fact." Does he mean that the first cross, 

 and the grades resulting from such mating, are to 

 be mated with the Egyptian bee? To judge from the 

 context, I infer that such a result is reached by the 

 first cross, when allowed to breed among themselves 

 to the third generation. This is opposed in every 

 respect to the testimony of those who have mated 

 the black bee with other races of bees, and to all 

 analogous testimony resulting from crossing other 

 races of animals. Mr. W. F. Clark says, in the B. K. 

 M., "I apprehend bee stock is ruled by the same 

 laws that govern other stock." Martin Metcalf says, 

 in the above-mentioned journal (see Vol. V., No. 11, 

 p. 273:) "Our conclusions ai'e firmly established, 

 that the same principles which are universally ap- 

 plied to the development and perfection of a distinct 

 type of horses, cattle, swine, sheep, or any other 



family of the animal kingdom, must be adopted and 

 rigidly adhered to, if we hope to make any progress, 

 or even maintain the characteristics we now possess." 

 Like the queens referred to by Mr. Doolittle, some 

 that I have raised, and that have mated with bhick 

 drones when no Italian droneswere in this vicinity, 

 have raised worker bees marked with three yellow 

 bands exclusively; but in every case they wei-e of an 

 irascible di>*position, and in all other respects re- 

 sembled other hybrids: such queens we killed. We 

 bred from the old pure queens, and such others as 

 we infen-ed were pure, from the writings of those 

 who said the most in the bee journals, killing such 

 queens as had evidently mated with black drones; 

 but, contrary to our own judgment, leaving some of 

 their drones. We purchased pure queens, occasion- 

 ally, to breed from; but could not, under this sys- 

 tem, repress the lilack bee. We at length moved the 

 hybrids, and some Italians three miles from home. 

 They were allowed to breed inter sc, and they grew 

 darker from year to year. Some became entirely 

 black — queens, drones, and workers. Albinos were 

 produced, and several stocks raised worker bees 

 whose abdomens had a shortened and pinched ap- 

 pearance. Had not the disease of last winter de- 

 stroyed them, they would probably have developed 

 into a sub-variety of black bees. 



Eight years ago we purchased some Lancashire 

 and some Berkshire pigs — the former a white race, 

 the latter nearly black. They were pedigreed stock. 

 When crossed, the Lancashire in every case impart' 

 ed to their ott'spriug their color; but their character- 

 istics, and those of the Berkshire, wore nearly equal- 

 ly blended. Increase of size, and vigor, resulted 

 from the first cross. When this cross was mated 

 with the Lancashire, the result was endless variety 

 in form and color; they seemed to be breeding back- 

 ward. We continued to breed grade after grade 

 with the pure Lancashire, and not until the sixth or 

 seventh cross had been made did any thing like uni- 

 formity result, llesulting from the Imperfect blend- 

 ing of the two races, a pig with its upper lip sepa- 

 rated from the jaw-bone, several with five phalanges 

 to the front feet, and one with six, were produced, 

 and several with aborted mamraie. Those cases are 

 not exactly parallel, pure blood having been always 

 used with the hogs, and only when it happened so 

 with the bees; yet from the similiarity of the results, 

 1 think we can safely draw the following conclusion: 

 That an individual or race, though suflicienlly pre- 

 potent to exert a controlling influence over a first 

 cross, through the imperfect blending of the races, 

 subsequently fails to exert the same influence. Pre- 

 potency failing, the latent tendency to revert back 

 to the color of the original species that exists in the 

 Italiin, and is aroused into activity by crossing the 

 races, augmented by inventation and fcetal circula- 

 tion, produces the speedy obliteration of the yellow 

 bands. Jerome AViltse. 



P. S. — Having photographs of two of those fcogs' 

 feet, of which I wrote in the inclosed article, I send 

 them to you us evidence of the results produced by 

 mingling the blood of two races. J. W. 



Kulo, Neb., Dec, 1881. 



The photographs inclosed show very plain- 

 ly a queer deformity of the feet, and indi- 

 cate something wrong, without question. If 

 I correctly understand friend W., he claims 

 that the crossing of two races gives fresh 

 vigor to the cross for only a few genera- 

 tions, and that to reap the best results from 



