Nov. 21, 1901. 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL, 



743 



proceeded to fight it out in the ordinary 

 way. 



Mr. Davidson — I have introduced 

 hundreds of queens by using^ tobacco- 

 smoke, and very successfully, but I 

 would like to add a word of caution — it 

 ought not to be done at any other time 

 than late at night. The way I use it 

 for introducing is right at night; just 

 give them a few puffs of tobacco-smoke 

 and put in your queen — enough to 

 make them so they all feel the effects 

 of the smoke. It is the most success- 

 ful way I have tried in ten years of in- 

 troducing queens; but it requires cau- 

 tion to keep down robbing. I use com- 

 mon smoking tobacco, and smoke them 

 till I know they all feel the effect of it. 



You can tell by the noise they make 

 running around. I used to use it in 

 the middle of the day, but when 

 smoked in the middle of the day a few 

 strange bees are apt to come in. 



ELECTION OF OFFICERS. 



The matter of election of officers for 

 the ensuing year was then taken up 

 and the following nominations made: 



For President, W. Z. Hutchinson 

 was nominated by Dr. Mason. 



Mr. Abbott moved that the rule be 

 suspended, and the secretary be author- 

 ized to cast the unanimous ballot of 

 the Association for W. Z. Hutchinson 

 as president for the ensuing year. The 

 motion was seconded and carried, the 



secretary cast the ballot, and Mr. 

 Hutchinson was declared duly elected. 



For vice-president, O. L. Hershiser 

 was nominated by Mr. Benton. Mr. 

 Hershiser's nomination was seconded, 

 and on motion of Mr. Abbott the rules 

 were suspended and the secretary in- 

 structed to cast the ballot for Mr. O. 

 L. Hershiser, who was then declared 

 elected vice-president for the ensuing 

 year. 



Dr. A. B. Mason was nominated as 

 secretary, and duly elected in the same 

 manner. 



The convention then adjourned till 

 7:30 p.m. 



fContiaued next week.) 



Qiueen-Breedin§ and Improvement in Bees. 



BY A. NORTON. 



IT is a matter for rejoicing that so much attention is now 

 being given to the improvement of stock in the apiary. In 

 one sense the movement is not new. For years individuals 

 have worked along this line and have done what they could 

 independently, some in one direction and some in another. 

 Even yet the movement has not become systematic ; but it has 

 grown so much in magnitude and is atttacting so many of our 

 most systematic apiarists and queen-breeders that we may ex- 

 pect to see it assume more and more systematic shape each 

 season, if results do not prove too temporary to warrant its 

 continuance. At least the united efforts of breeders will dem- 

 onstrate how much dependence may be placed upon this hope 

 of improving our races of bees, so that more intelligent esti- 

 mates can be formed in the near future than at present. Even 

 yet there is room for betterment in the aims of our improvers, 

 some of whom decry what others are bringing about, and nar- 

 row their desires down to certain points, to the exclusion of 

 other desirable ones. But we may hope that broader and so 

 more uniform aims will soon prevail, and that then all breed- 

 ers will be pursuing the same parallel paths. 



Through but few pages of earth's record can we trace 

 back bees and breeding. Geologically we know bees of sundry 

 species as early as the Eocene age of the Cenozolc (or Mamma- 

 lian) time. The oldest known specimens are found preserved 

 in the Eocene amber, or fossilized wax, on the shores of the 

 Haltic Sea. That was about the time of the first appearance 

 of flowering plants and trees, and before there was any one to 

 domesticate and breed them. There were none even to love 

 the sweetness of their garnerings till the cave bear came, un- 

 less animals of some other then existing orders were fond of 

 honey. 



How long honey-bees have been the associates of man as 

 domesticated Insects can not be even conjectured. Histor- 

 ically, the searches Into this ([uestlon that we have seen from 

 lime to time in the American Bee Journal have carried us well 

 into antiquity, but have not brought us to any answer. They 

 have shown, however, that anything like intelligent hand- 

 ling and careful breeding is by no means ancient, and that 

 our present improvements have been accomplished within a 

 short period. While we should avoid over-conservativeness, 

 or '• old fogyishness," in regard to progress, we may, on the 

 other hand, get into over-enthusiasm in our visionary hopes. 



In considering the subject of breeding bees, and the pos- 

 sihilllies that lie therein, men are liable to let preconceived 

 ideas carry their hopes. If not beyond the possible, at least 

 beyond the probable. Yet any who may have excessive ex- 

 pectations of what breeding may bring forth, are likely more 

 wrong in their premises than in their conclusions. If the 

 theories we are just now lold we must believe or be behind 

 the times, are true, that life evoluted from dead njattor and 

 man originated In some monkey, and soon back In formless 

 protoplasm, why need we limit our ambition In the line of 

 breeding? Let us produio Apis dorsata, or something just as 

 good, from the bees we already have, instead of searching 

 Asiatic jungles for them. l..et us breed bees from wasps, or, 



perchance.develop mosquitoes into storers of nectar instead of 

 probers for blood. 



Domestication hastens variation and Increases It: but the 

 balance of variation and heredity will always continue stable. 

 Natural selection, therefore, may be considered as tJod's pre- 

 ventive of degeneracy, and not a substitute for creation ; and, 

 as surely as Ood circumscribed the ocean. He has also set the 

 bounds of propagating organisms — " So far shait thou change, 

 and no f\irther." Logic may lead us astray In these matters. 

 If we reach the North Pole and keep on traveling, we will be 

 getting away from It. So it is with truth, which is the ouly 

 science : for logic, assumption, and speculation are not sci- 

 ence. 



Take, for Instance, the familiar Illustration of the deer 

 and the wolves. The fastest deer can save their lives and 

 breed faster offspring ; and thus their speed has been attained, 

 say logic, assumption and speculation. This necessitates the 

 assumption that they once were slow. Do we know this to be 

 a fact ? How did they become slow if not by a process of evo- 



lution from some other condition ? But, dismissing this little 

 dllHculty, we give assumption, speculation and logic full ])lay, 

 and conceive that once the wolves were so slow they could not 

 catch the deer : and the deer were so slow they could not get 

 away from the wolves. But the stern necessity for catching 

 deer, and the pressing need of eluding wolves, have.tended to 

 make the wolves so fleet that they can overtake the deer, and 

 the deer so swift that they can keep ahead of the; wolves. 



By like reasoning from assumption, we can prove that 

 bees once had tongues too short to get the nectar from corolla- 

 tubes ; so how did they live, unless the corolla-tubes were too 

 short to withhold their nectar ? Then the flowers so length- 

 ened their tubes as to bar bees from getting their nectar and 

 cross-fertilizing them : and the bees' tongues so lengthened 

 that they could get the nectar and fertilize the flowers. Of 



