THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW 



145 



been accomplished. This may appear as 

 not harmonizing with the statements just 

 made. However, it is more in keeping 

 with the facts to assume that in this 

 breeding work, those animals are selected 

 as breeders which have shown speed and 

 in which it may therefore be assumed 

 that there exist sex cells having the latent 

 speed characters. This assumption is not 

 always correct and consequently the 

 breeding is not always successful. If two 

 animals having such inheritable charac- 

 ters are crossed the result may be a still 

 more speedy animal than either parent, 

 since the character is accentuated by the 

 combination. It is true that the animals 

 used for breeding fast horses are usually 

 trained for speed, but this is because the 

 owners desire to utilize to the fullest ex- 

 tent the bodily (not sexual) characters of 

 the individual, and to use the results to 

 test the probability of their sex cells hav- 

 ing the desired characters. 



It is believed and assumed that the sex 

 cells are quite independent of the body 

 cells. Mr. DuPray calls attention to the 

 fact that a character acquired by the 

 workers does not influence the queen. In 

 the same way characters acquired by the 

 body of an animal do not influence the 

 sex cells. In bee breeding it would be 

 necessary to choose as breeding queens 

 those whose worker progeny showed the 

 desired traits, on the assumption that 

 those traits are inheritable. In the same 

 way in horse breeding, that animal is 

 chosen as a breeder whose body shows 

 the desired traits on the assumption that 



these traits are latent in the sex cells and 

 are therefore inheritable. Bee breeding 

 is peculiar in that we must deal with the 

 colony as a unit instead of with the indi- 

 vidual. In this unit, the queen seems to 

 represent the sex-cell container and the 

 workers correspond to the body cells of 

 the horse. 



I am well aware that the views here 

 expressed are not held by all practical 

 breeders, but they are the concensus of 

 opinion of the majority of scientific work- 

 ers in this field. They are here given 

 not as a personal opinion based on inves- 

 tigation, but to point out the attitude of 

 those well informed in this field of labor. 



Mr. DuPray further calls attention to 

 the fact that when preventing swarming 

 by manipulation he does not breed out 

 the swarming impulse. This is quite true. 

 Breeding of bees has proven to be a 

 problem that but few have had the cour- 

 age to try to solve. Consequently we 

 must try to do by manipulation the things 

 that we possibly should do by breeding. 

 When we see what has been done in 

 breeding five-banded Italians we are 

 forced to the conclusion that it is possible 

 to change the bee by breeding. If we 

 could but devise a methed for control of 

 mating, progress would be more rapid. 

 The five-banded bee did not exist in the 

 days of Samson's exp oits with the Leo 

 bar-frame hive, and it is probable that 

 before as many centuries pass again 

 some further changes in the bee may be 

 seen. 



Washington, D. C, Feb. 9, 1911. 



The Rearing and Mating of Queens Above Queen 

 Excluding Hone)^ Boards. 



FRANK G. 



\^^l/0 have on hand two surplus queens, 

 f J numerous cells in process of 

 ^^' building, and a colony of bees 

 pursuing all the activities of the brood- 

 nest at the same time, is a convenience 



ODELL. 



not to be despised by the progressive bee- 

 keeper. Your invitation in the January 

 Review to discuss this topic seems to be 

 addressed to me personally, as I have 

 followed this plan very successfully. 



