July 18, 1901. 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL, 



453- 



'three yellow bauds or rings;' a third makes the iiiarldugs of the 

 queen a test of purity; a fourth tests the purity of a queen by her 

 progeny ; and a fifth makes the Vf ry amiable disposition of the worker, 

 or the ' impeccability of temper.' a test of purity. A person entirely 

 unacquainted with Italian bees, after hearing the ditl'erent opinions of 

 these doctors, if he purchased a i|ueen. purity guaranteed, would 

 hardly know where to look for a reliable test." 



As a matter of course, the writer became very much 

 interested in these new bees, I had kept bees all my life, 

 and as soon as I heard of the Langstroth movable-comb 

 hive I adopted it — in 18b2 or 1863, I think — and I determined 

 to have some of these new bees. 



As I have stated in another article, I came to Pelee 

 Island, Lake Erie, in 1866, and one of the first things I did 

 was to inquire about bees, and I found that there was only 

 one colony on the Island, and I bought that, and went to 

 the main shore of Ontario and bought two more colonies. 

 These I soon had transferred to Langstroth hives. I found 

 that the Island abounded in good bee-pastures, especially 

 the unbroken forest of basswood, and I am a great lover of 

 honey as well as bees. 



About this time a number of breeders of Italian queens 

 had come to Kelley's Island, Ohio, because there were no 

 black bees there, and it was beyond the flight of black bees 

 from the main shore, consequently they could rear pure 

 queens without the possibility of having them mated with 

 black drones. Kelley's Island being only a short distance 

 from Pelee Island — just across the international boundary 

 line — I had a fine opportunity to see these bees, and was 

 not long in taking advantage of it. I found a number of 

 queen-breeders there — Aaron Benedict, W. A. Flanders — 

 " Professor " Flanders with his Apiarian Institute and bee- 

 charm ; and my friend, Charles Carpenter, one of the earli- 

 est settlers of Kelley's Island, and the first person to demon- 

 strate the adaptability of the Island to grape-growing, 

 was also engaged in rearing queens. I paid Mr. Carpenter 

 SIO for two queens, fine and beautiful ones, of course. I 

 got them home all right and successfully introduced them 

 to two of my colonies. 



The humorous side of queen-rearing on Kelley's Island 

 was given by the editor of the Ohio Farmer in his paper in 

 1867, after a visit to the Island. He tells what he saw there 

 as follows : 



'W. A. Fl.\n'ders the Bee-Man'. — Prof. W. A. Flanders — you may 

 have heard of him — has his Apiarian Institute on Kelley's Island, and 

 of course we visited his institution. Mr. Flanders has a host of bee- 

 families dwelling in busy harmony under every green tree in the 

 neighborhood. Talk of bigpricestor Merino rams! Flanders can get 

 more money tor an Italian queen-bee, with three rings around her tail, 

 than any ram-peddler can get for the best Vermont Merino in his 

 flock, Flanders showed us (in a vial of alcohol) one of these amiable 

 little female sovereigns that had lately fallen in a duel with another 

 amiable little female sovereign, for which, he declared with a sigh — 

 which came from as low down as the seat of his broad pantaloons — 

 that he would not have taken .^ISO I Bugs is riz I But then the thing 

 can be settled by arithmetic. Here are Hi other anuable little sover- 

 eigns, bred from this insect in the vial, for each of which Flanders 

 can take from .<'20 to S'2.5. The demonstration is plain— a little insect 

 not so big as a toothpick, worth more money than a shorthorn bull ! 

 The idea wouM be ridiculous if it were not true. But Flanders has 

 improved upon the (jriLriiial Dr. Jacob Townsend, aiul instead of being 

 satisfied with the orthodo.x full-blood Italian with three rings, has 

 gone one better, and showed us a queen of his rearing with four rings 

 around her body, all of the royal purple and gold." 

 (To be continued.) 



In-breedinj^— If Practiced, it Should Be Sparingly 

 and With Good Judgment. 



BY FREDERICK B. SIMPSON. 



IT is to be regretted that those friends who have been 

 foremost in agitating the subject of in-breeding, have 

 not yet gone beyond vague generalities, and given us 

 some specific information which would be of direct benefit 

 to the. practical bee-keeper. In this connection Mr. A. C. 

 Miller, in May 1 Gleanings, might well make his require- 

 ments for a successful queen-bee breeder more complete by 

 adding a college education as another requisite. There is 

 no possible doubt about the great aid these requirements 

 would prove to the queen-rearer ; but is it not very excep- 

 tional when a bee-keeper possesses all these requirements, 

 and is it not a little unfair to predict failure for all except 

 the exceptionally favored .' Is not the commercially suc- 

 cessful bee-keeper and queen-rearer practical rather than 

 theoretical, commercial rather than scientific ? Andean not 

 the best results followed by those who have the educational 

 advantages which make it possible for them to be familinr 



with the general laws of biology, and therefore strong on 

 theory but in many cases being prevented from being 

 broadly practical (on a large scale) by reason of occupation 

 or circumstances— can not these students formulate plans 

 based on scientific truth, which the practical man can use 

 as a basis for systematic breeding, making such modifica- 

 tions as future results may indicate— such results to be 

 made known to these students that they may be able to con- 

 tinue to give what aid lies in their power ? 



In this manner a systematic method followed by a prac- 

 tical man who thoroughly understands all the practical 

 methods of queen-rearing, and who can secure the greatest 

 yield of honey from the greatest number of colonies with 

 the least manipulation, and who can have the best knowl- 

 edge of the qualities of each individual queen— this man 

 should be able to make the greatest success of queen-rear- 

 ing and should be able to rear queens so skillfully that no 

 large honey-producer could afiord to do anything except 

 requeen from such bred stock. To the end that some such 

 method may eventually be formulated, I will contribute my 

 mite by saying some things about in-breeding ; although 

 be it understood from the start that I do not believe we will 

 ever get any really conclusive knowledge on this subject 

 except by actually breeding the bees ; the more so from the 

 fact that we have nothing in the nature of a domesticated 

 animal which forms any real parallel to the bee, 



Herbert Spencer says: "Remembering the fact that 

 among the higher classes of organisms fertilization is 

 always effected by combining the sperm-cell of one indi- 

 vidual with the germ-cell of another, and joining with it 

 the fact that among hermaphrodite organisms the germ- 

 cells developed in any individuul are usually not fertilized 

 by sperm-cells developed in the same individual, we see 

 reason for thinking that the essential thing in fertiliza- 

 tion is the union of specially fitted portions of different 

 organisms. If fertilization depended on the peculiar prop- 

 erties of sperm-cell and germ-cell, as such, then in hermaph- 

 rodite organisms it would be a matter of indifference 

 whether the united sperm-cells and germ-cells were those 

 of the same individual or those of different individuals. 

 But the circumstance that there exist in such organisms 

 elaborate appliances for mutual fertilization shows that 

 unlikeness of derivation in the united reproductive centers 

 is the desideratum." 



Mr. Darwin says : "I will venture to add a few remarks 

 on the general question of close interbreeding. Sexual 

 reproduction is so essentially the same in plants find ani- 

 mals that I think we may fairly apply conclusions drawn 

 from one kingdom to the other. From a long series of 

 experiments on plants, given in my book, 'On the Effects of 

 Cross and Self Fertilization," the conclusion seems clear 

 that there is no mysterious evil in the mere fact of the 

 nearest relations breeding together : but that the evil fol- 

 lows (independently of inherited disease or weakness) 

 from the circumstances of near relations generally possess- 

 ing a closely similar constitution. However little we may 

 be able to explain the cause, the facts detailed by me show 

 that the male and female sexual elements must be differen- 

 tiated to a certain degree in order to unite properly and give 

 birth to a vigorous progeny. Such differentiation of the 

 sexual eleinents follows from the parents and their ances- 

 tors having lived during some generations under different 

 conditions of life. 



" The closest interbreeding does not seem to induce vari- 

 ability or a departure from the typical form of the race or 

 family, but it causes loss of size, of constitutional vigor in 

 resisting unfavorable influences, and often of fertility. 

 On the other hand, a cross between plants of the same sub- 

 variety, which have been grovrn during some generations 

 under different conditions, increases to an extraordinary 

 degree the size and vigor of the offspring. 



•■ Some kinds of plants bear self-fertilization much bet- 

 ter than others ; nevertheless it has been proved that these 

 profit greatly by a cross with fresh stock. So it appears to 

 be with animals, for Shorthorn cattle— perhaps all cattle- 

 can withstand close interbreeding with very little injury; 

 but if they could be crossed with a distinct stock without 

 any loss of their excellent qualities, it would be a most sur- 

 prising fact if the offspring did not also profit in a very 

 high degree in constitutional vigor." 



Until we can get some absolute proof that these argu- 

 ments are untrue in the specific case of bee-breeding, it 

 would seem unsafe for any (pieen-bee breeder to do any 

 in-breeding with the intention of selling the resulting 

 stock ; but only as a matter of research until some abso- 

 lute proof could be obtained Ijy experimental work through 

 several generations of bees. Few queen-bee breeders will 



