THE BEE-KEEPERS" REVIEW 



213 



naughty things wlicn that persistent 

 little fellow tried to get up your nos- 

 tril ? And haven't you and the horse done 

 a cake-walk when it tried to find a 

 bee cave in the horse's ear? And 



haven't you sometimes beat an ignoble 

 retreat that you would hate to own up 

 to in a bee convention? Be honest now, 

 of course you have. And the remedy 

 so simple. Why didn't we think of it?] 



Improvement in Bees by Seledion in Breeding. 



J. E. HAND 



"^j^lERHAPS no branch of bee- 

 \t keeping offers a greater induce- 

 '^ ment to the bee-keeper than 

 the improvement of stock by careful 

 selection, and judicious breeding along 

 chosen lines. It is thus that we may 

 establish and perpetuate inherent tend- 

 encies of a highly desirable character; 

 for example, we discover that a certain 

 colony has developed unusual qualities 

 along some particular line, it may be 

 that the bees of a certain colony are 

 gentler than any others in the apiary ; 

 or perhaps some colony has far out- 

 stripped all the rest in honey-gathering 

 qualities, cap their honey whiter, are 

 better comb builders, or less inclined to 

 gather propolis, etc., all of which are 

 traits that it is very desirable to per- 

 petuate, and for which the wide awake 

 queen breeder is ever on the lookout, 

 for it is only by selection and breeding 

 from such sports as these that we can 

 hope to develop an improved strain of 

 bees. 



When such a colony is discovered it 

 should be marked for further observa- 

 tion and closer inspection, and if these 

 desirable traits continue under adverse 

 conditions that queen is used as a breed- 

 er of drones as well as queens. No one 

 should fear for the consequences of 

 in-breeding, for it is only by a judicious 

 system of in-breeding along chosen 

 lines that very much has ever yet been 

 accomplished by way of establishing 

 fixed characteristics, whether in bees or 

 other kinds of animals. The difficul- 

 ties surrounding the mating of queens 

 have been greatly magnified and is by 



no means an insurmountable obstacle ; 

 it is true that we cannot mate our 

 queens with the same degree of cer- 

 tainty that surrounds the mating 

 of other animals, and yet the queen 

 breeder who is so fortunate as to be 

 isolated far enough from other bees, 

 to enable him to control the drones 

 within a radius of three miles, can 

 mate his queens with drones of his own 

 rearing with sufficient accuracy to en- 

 able him to establish fixed traits, such 

 as uniformity of marking as well as 

 inherent habits, all of which are indi- 

 cations of well bred stock. 



THE BEST METHOD FOR IMPROVING BEES. 



Alany bee-keepers have erroneous 

 ideas concerning the best method of 

 improving bees ; for example, not long 

 since, a correspondent asked the opin- 

 ion of the writer concerning a plan that 

 he had in view for the development of 

 an improved strain of bees. If I re- 

 member correctly the idea was to pur- 

 chase virgin queens from several of the 

 most noted queen breeders and mate 

 them with drones of various other noted 

 strains. His estimate of the cost of 

 the project was $1,.500. My reply was 

 to the effect that while it would seem 

 at first sight like a very good plan, a 

 closer scrutiny reveals the humiliating 

 fact that after we have parted company 

 with our cash, about all we will have to 

 show for our time and money invested, 

 will be a mixed conglomeration of dif- 

 ferent strains of bees, and that it would 

 require the best part of a lifetime of 

 selection and lireeding to enable him 



