GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Oct. 



dewy eve," regardless of weather. They must get 

 something from it that they like. At any rate, It 

 gives them employment when most other flowers 

 have failed. The flowers on the little sprig have 

 nearly all dropped off, and I am afraid the few re- 

 tnaining ones will be rubbed off before you get it. 

 I ought to have sent it sooner. 



The seed of the spider plant I got from you did 

 not germinate well, owing to the cold rainy weather. 

 I have a few plants which have grown and are 

 blooming luxuriantly, but the bees scarcely noticed 

 them at all. Perhaps they find the "Devil" more 

 agreeable. The rape is blooming pretty well, but 

 the bees seem to prefer a little patch of mustard 

 growing just beside it. Indeed, mustard has out- 

 stripped everv thing else that I have tried, as a bee- 

 plant. I don't know that it yields such a great quan- 

 tity of honey, but it is of such rapid growth, and 

 blooms in such a short time after being planted, 

 that you can have it at almost anytime you want it, 

 and thereby save feeding. 



I would just like to state here, that I never heard 

 of that race of "bob-tailed dogs" once raised in 

 Wytheville. If there ever was such a race here it 

 soon played out, which ought to warn others not to 

 cut off their dogs' tails or clip their queens' wings. 



Wytheville, Va., Aug. 31, 1882. M. B. Crockett. 



The plant, my friend, is Symphora carim^, 

 and we liave it now in bloom in our garden. 

 It has attracted a good deal of attention for 

 several years, and just as soon as the season 

 of its bloom comes, we have many specimens 

 sent in. With us, it has this season attract- 

 ed more bees than before, but I am hardly 

 ready yet to place it on a footing with the 

 Simpson and spider plants. I would recom- 

 mend dropping the name you seem to prefer 

 calling it by, if you will excuse the liberty. 



REARING QUEENS BY SELECTION. 



CAN WE DO IT, WITH THE FACILITY WE DO OTHER 



STOCK? 



I HAVE just read, or rather re-read, with interest 

 the article of A. J. Cook on raising queens by 

 selection, in June No. of Gleanings, sent you 

 by Doolittle. 1 was pleased with your reply. I was 

 surprised that men of Cook's and Doolittle's abilities 

 should take the stand they do, and compare the mat- 

 ing and crossing of bees to that of horses, sheep, 

 and cattle. If our stock roamed at will in the woods, 

 and mated by chance, as our queens and drones do, 

 there would be some analogy; but in our present 

 mode of selecting and crossing, there is none what- 

 ever, as I see it; for in crossing our stock we select 

 the dam and the sire for some good points or quali- 

 ties which we wish to develop and perpetuate, and 

 impound them, and the desired cross is effected in 

 confinement. As you say, if they do not come up to 

 our ideal of perfection, they are rejected as breeders 

 and we try again; it may be by the selection of the 

 dam or sire of a different herd, but of the same 

 btrain. 



It is not so with our bees. We know nothing 

 about the points and good qualities of our virgin 

 queens and the drone that she mates. All we do 

 know is, that our queens are from our best stocks, 

 and the drones may be; for when a queen takes her 

 wedding flight there are drones from a hundred 

 stocks flying at the same time, and she is as likely 

 to mate with an inferior as one of our best drones; 



and when she is fertilised she is fertilized for life, 

 whether it be by an inferior, or a drone from our 

 best stocks. 



This risk and state of affairs is likely to remain, 

 until ways and means are devised to have them 

 mate in confinement. I know the idea has been sug- 

 gested in the papers, and talked of among apiarians; 

 but if it was ever tried, I have never heard of it. It 

 appears to me it could be df>ne by placing a frame of 

 drone brood from our best stock into a nucleus, in 

 time to have them hatch and fly before the queen 

 takes her flight, and putting them into a greenhouse, 

 or tent made of mosquito netting, and let them fly 

 there. If it could be done, we could have our queens 

 fertilized by drones of our own selection. 



What parts in our organism, vitality, and general 

 make-up, do the male and the female influence, is a 

 question I should like to have discussed in Glean- 

 ings by the scientist. Neither can be passive in 

 reproduction. The male must stamp his image on 

 some parts of the offspring more than others, and 

 so must the female some other. Which are they? A 

 knowledge of these facts would help us in our de- 

 ductions and crossings. Some writers on physiology 

 and reproduction contend that the male, generally 

 speaking, influences the physical organism, and the 

 female the vital, intellectual, and mental. Families 

 could be cited where the father had a giant mind 

 and intellect, and the mother weak-minded, having 

 well-developed children with weak minds, and some 

 idiots. Whore you find an intellectual and strong- 

 minded woman you generally find sprightly and in- 

 tellectual children, let the father be what he may; 

 and where you find a weak-minded woman, you gen- 

 erally find weak-minded children, even if the father 

 has good mental ability. Geo. W. Forman. 



Ripley, O., Aug. 7, 1883. 



Although your points are well taken, 

 friend F., I can not quite agree that we can 

 not improve bees with the same facility we 

 do other stock. It is true, that even if we 

 could get a virgin queen fertilized with the 

 precise drone we wished, we should know 

 but little about her, compared with what we 

 do of horses and cattle, when we select them 

 to breed from ; but it should be borne in 

 mind, we can get results from queens so 

 much quicker than from any otlier farm 

 stock, we are far ahead in time required, 

 even if we take another generation. Eor in- 

 stance : Take a queen you have raised 

 queens from for some time, and you know 

 her pretty well by the worker progeny of her 

 daughters, and this places her on a footing, 

 as it were, with the farm stock whose proge- 

 ny we test year after year. I heartily agree 

 with friend Cook in thinking it high time 

 some one should see what could be done 

 with bees by careful selection and breeding, 

 and we want another Berlepsch among us to 

 undertake the work. The only point on 

 which I did not agree was that there is any 

 necessity of stopping the regular queen traf- 

 fic meanwhile. In fact, the experimenter 

 could sell the queens he did not wish to use 

 for breeding, to honey-producers, and thus 

 get quite a little revenue to help pay the ex- 

 penses of the work. Discarded queens (hy- 

 brids, for instance) often produce great crops 

 of honey, as we all know, yet we would not 

 want them to send out swarms, or rear 

 drones, to the detriment of our other bees. 



