724 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



Nov. 14, 1901. 



I The Buffalo Convention. | 



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(Continued from page Til.j 

 QUEEN-REARING— IN-BREEDING. 



"In rearing- queens is in-breeding 

 objectionable?" 



Mrs. H. G. Acklin. of Minnesota — 

 There are so many present who are 

 much more extensive queen-breeders 

 than myself, that I would rather hear 

 an expression from them. I think it is 

 objectionable. We get queens from 

 several different breeders and bring- 

 into our apiary every year. 



Dr. Mason — Then your practice is 

 not to in-breed? 



Mrs. Acklin — Yes. 



Dr. Mason — What makes you think 

 it is objectionable? 



Mrs. Acklin — I really don't know. In 

 getting new queens you change j'our 

 stock, of course, and get good qual- 

 ities; in getting queens from different 

 breeders and bringing in the best 

 drones from your best colonies, you get 

 your best stock. Of course, if you have 

 any bad qualities in your queens at 

 home you change them to a certain ex- 

 tent. We watch our queens very 

 closely. 



Dr. Mason — Why not dispose of the 

 queens that you have that have bad 

 qualities, and keep those that have the 

 good, and breed from those right 

 along? 



Mrs. Acklin — I don't know as I am 

 able to answer that. 



Mr. Benton — It doesn't seem to me 

 that there is the least objection to con- 

 tinued close in-and-in breeding, of it- 

 self. That means, of itself. Note well. 

 In other words, if you have the intelli- 

 gence to select the queens, and select 

 the queens to breed drones with refer- 

 ence to the qualities which they pos- 

 sess and which you wish to perpetuate 

 and fix in the progeny, and to avoid 

 weaknesses, select such queens as 

 mothers of the drones as will avoid 

 weaknesses that are inherent in that 

 strain that you are breeding from. 

 From in-and-in breeding- we can fix a 

 type, or character, which we could not 

 by constantly bringing in different 

 strains or crosses. In all our hybrid 

 animals the types have been estab- 

 lished. We have a beef animal; we 

 have a milk animal; we have a sheep 

 that gives us long wool, and fowls that 

 produce eggs, others produce meat, and 

 so on, and in every instance all of those 

 particular-purpose animals have been 

 produced by careful, intelligent in-and- 

 in breeding. From the very earliest 

 start, therefore, I claim that in-and-in 

 breeding is not harmful, but it is the 

 lack of ability or experience to apply 

 it that results badly. When we have a 

 strain with a weakness and we do not 

 bring in any other stock at all, we do 

 not breed intelligently enough to fix 



the stronger points in the breed, and 

 eventually that strain will run out. 



Mr. West— In regard to this in-and- 

 in breeding, the question I was going 

 to ask is, How much does that mean? 

 Can we confine in-and-in breeding to 

 bees with a queen of the same individ- 

 ual hive and let that constitute an 

 apiary, and use the drones from that 

 individual hive from year to year and 

 remove all other colonies from the 

 place? Would it be beneficial to in- 

 and-in breed in that way? 



Mr. Benton— I don't suppose such a 

 case occurs at all, and in actual prac- 

 tice there is very little in-and-in breed- 

 ing. It would require great care and 

 attention, and the controlling of the 

 drone-production and isolation of the 

 apiary so that in actual practice there 

 is more cross-breeding than in-and-in 

 breeding. I really think it has been 

 held up as a bugbear, and people that 

 supposed they were breeding in-and-in 

 were really not doing so, because there 

 was such constant out-crossing, and I 

 don't think that we would be able, with 

 the greatest care, to confine to as close 

 in-breeding as Mr. West refers to. 

 When we speak of it generally, I think 

 it refers to close breeding more than 

 in-and-in breeding, confining drone- 

 production and using perhaps the same 

 queen mother constantly. 



Dr. Mason — Perhaps 30 years ago I 

 had a brother who kept bees, and I 

 started in from two colonies that he 

 gave me. He lived at least fifteen 

 miles from anybody that kept bees. 

 He got a good queen and he never 

 bought any more, but he was con- 

 stantly getting rid of the queens that 

 showed poor qualities, and he had the 

 best honey-gatherers I ever knew. He 

 kept the bees pure. They were gentle 

 and as nice as one wishes to see. That 

 is what makes me believe in in-and-in 

 breeding. They were Italian bees. I 

 have a neighbor who raises poultry. 

 He commenced nine years ago with'a 

 trio of Buff Cochins. He never has 

 gotten another fowl of any description 

 to put with his own. He has bred from 

 his own and is a prominent exhibitor 

 at poultry shows, and frequently acts 

 as judge at large poultry exhibitions, 

 and he always gets first premium on 

 his Cochins that are in-and-in bred. 

 These two things make me in favor of 

 in-and-in breeding. I got a queen from 

 a Michigan man last year, and I have 

 tried to breed from that queen both 

 queens and drones, and I think I have 

 succeeded pretty well, and if I have 

 done what I think I have done I don't 

 want anything better. I am in favor 

 of in-and-in breeding, but intelligently, 

 as Mr. Benton talks about. It cannot 

 be done at haphazard, taking anything 

 and everything that comes along in 

 your own apiary. 



Mr. Abbott — 1 feel as if I wanted to 

 vote on this. I am surprised to know 

 that a man who has given as much at- 

 tention to science as Mr. Benton has, 

 is so in accord with the view that I 

 have held for years, and which has 

 been combatted by poultry people, and 

 by everybody, in fact, wherever I have 

 expressed it. This idea, which origin- 

 ated with Darwin, and has been re- 

 peated without limit since that time, 

 has gotten such a hold in the world 

 that it is pretty hard to get it out of 

 the minds of the people. In fact, some 

 people think they ought to be against 

 in-andin breeding because it is for- 

 bidden in the Bible. They sometimes 

 give that as a reason. But, so far as 

 animals are concerned, the best illus- 

 tration of the result of in-and-in breed- 

 ing is found in the State of New York. 

 There is a man who originated what is 

 known as the American Holderness 

 cattle, and those cattle originated from 

 a single cow that came from the Hol- 

 derness cattle of England, some 40 

 years ago, and dropped a male calf, 

 and all the cattle of that herd have that 

 blood in them, said to be the finest herd 

 of cattle on this continent. That man 

 has used intelligent in-and-in breeding. 

 He has taken out all of the bad quali- 

 ties, eliminated them as fast as he 

 came in contact with them, and bred 

 in the good qualities, and that is what 

 I believe in. The poultry people, of 

 course, who have males to sell, would 

 like to have you believe that it is a 

 good thing to send across the conti- 

 nent and buy a male at a high price in 

 order to keep your poultry healthy. I 

 have been doing myself just what Dr. 

 Mason says his neighbor has been do- 

 ing, breeding Golden Wyandottes, and 

 I haven't had any new blood for years, 

 and I am quite sure that if I live for 50 

 years more (and I hope I will 100), I am 

 quite sure that there will be no new 

 blood go into that stock, but I kill every 

 roopy hen, I exterminate every diseased 

 rooster, and wipe out with the hatchet 

 all tendency to disease; I don't tamper 

 with it; I don't fool with it; I simply 

 bury it beneath the ground out of 

 sight. I believe that if bee-keepers 

 can control bee-fertilization some time 

 in the future, that they can get the 

 best results from in-and-in breeding. 

 I hope that we will get rid of this whole 

 idea of Darwin, that cross-fertilization 

 is necessary to perpetuate the race. 

 There is nothing in it. 



Mr. Benton — That person who ob- 

 tained that trio of Buff Cochins must 

 have gotten good stock, and then prob- 

 ably has selected intelligently. Now, 

 suppose he had found, after breeding, 

 that there had been some trouble with 

 the stock, like leg weakness for in- 

 stance, it is very doubtful if he could 

 have gotten rid of it by simply killing 

 off the old stock. It is probable that 

 he would have had to cross with an- 

 other lot of Cochins, fowls with good, 

 strong legs we will say, for instance; 

 in other words, put good legs on what 

 is already good stock. I think in ap- 

 plying that to the bees, we would 

 want, in some instances, to get a queen 

 into our apiary of another race. To 

 show how near qualities can be fixed 

 by in-and-in breeding, I will allude to 

 an experience of mine: I had some 

 Rose Comb Black Minorca fowls, and 

 I had a male of that breed and a female 

 of the Rose Comb White Minorca. It 

 occurred to me that no one had pro- 



