1910 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



787 



ELIMINATING THE SWARMING INSTINCT 

 BY BREEDING. 



The Tendency to Sit has been Bred from Certain 

 Strains of Fowls; is Not the Swarming Impulse 

 of Bees Akin to the Tendency to Sit in Fowls? 



BY W. E. FLOWER. 



Mr. R. F. Holtermann, page 715, Nov. 15, 

 asks a question concerning cat-breeding, 

 which I should like to answer. In my arti- 

 cle, page 632, Oct. 1, 1 said, " It is a fact that 

 Ifanx cats have no tails," but the printer 

 made me say, "Many cats have no tails." 

 So far as I know, Manx eats do not exist in 

 a state of nature; but by careful breeding 

 they can be depended upon to reproduce 

 their kind. The man who follows nature, 

 no matter whether he breeds hens or horses, 

 must be satisfied with natural results. I 

 cited the 31st chapter of Genesis as an in- 

 stance of what could be done when the mat- 

 ing of the parent stock could be controlled. 



Thousands of queens are reared artificial- 

 ly, so are thousands and tens of thousands 

 of chickens; likewise, many thousands of 

 colonies of bees are made every year without 

 natural swarming. The point I wish to 

 make is, that it would be possible by careful 

 selection to breed out the swarming impulse 

 just as the natural instinct to reproduce by 

 sitting has been bred out of the Leghorn and 

 other breeds of hens. 



Darwin, in "Variation of Animals and 

 Plants Under Domestication," says, "The 

 progeny of the first cross always reverts to 

 one or the other of the original ancestors." 

 Now, I might develop a non-swarming strain 

 of bees by the method Mr. Holtermann sug- 

 gested; but a single mismated queen would 

 upset my efforts and put me back where I 

 started from; whereas if I could control the 

 mating of every queen as I can the mating 

 of every hen, progress would be sure and the 

 goal would soon be reached. 



Mr. Raleigh Thompson, page 736, Nov. 15, 

 indirectly makes the statement that I will 

 never produce a non-svs^arming race of bees. 

 He may be right, as I am near the three- 

 score-and-ten mark; but if I could get some 

 of our queen-breeders to see the thing in its 

 true hght the result might be accomplished. 



Ashbourne, Pa. 



[We do not wish to be pessimistic; but we 

 feel that, though different breeds of hens 

 have been developed that have lost to a 

 great extent the tendency to sit, the elimi- 

 nation of the swarming instinct in bees 

 would be wellnigh impossible, because of 

 the impracticability of controlling the male 

 parentage. However, we believe that, un- 

 der certain conditions and in certain locali- 

 ties, there are strains of bees which possibly 

 by chance have developed with less of a ten- 

 dency to swarm; but, on the other hand, if 

 man steps in and tries to accentuate this 

 non-swarming tendency, his efforts may 

 perhaps result in a greater tendency to 



swarm rather than less, because, as we stat- 

 ed before, he can not select the drones that 

 he wishes to mate with his queens. 



The sitting tendency among hens is the 

 most similar illustration that we know of to 

 the swarming instinct of bees; but since 

 man, even when he can control the mating 

 of fowls, has never been successful in elimi- 

 nating all tendency to sit, it would seem 

 like a hopeless case to get tangible results 

 along the non-swarming line among bees. 

 However, in this connection see what G. 

 W. Bullamore has to say on the subject in 

 his article which follows. — Ed.] 



NATURAL SELECTION AND THE HABITS 

 OF BEES. 



How Natural Selection Perpetuates such Habits 

 as Running Upward when the Hives are Drum- 

 med; Swarming, Gathering Surplus Honey, 

 Robbing, etc. 



BY G. W. BULLAMORE. 



[We seldom stop to think why it is that bees have 

 certain habits; for, in the hurry and worry of the 

 present day, \\ e are more apt to look at these things 

 as a matter of course. Mr. Bullamore, in the fol- 

 lowing excellent article, gives what seems to us a 

 very satisfactory explanation, showing why colo- 

 nies of bees which have not exhibited certain traits 

 die off, so that those wh ch do, by natural selection, 

 live on to perpetuate these traits. We commend 

 this article to the careful study of our reader.s, — 

 Ed.] 



The efficacy of environment in modifying 

 the habits of honey-bees has been called in 

 question by Messrs. M. E. Pruitt, page 529, 

 Aug. 15, and R. F. Ploltermann, page 548, 

 Sept. 1. I am a firm believer in its potency, 

 and am stating the case from my own stand- 

 IDoint, hoping that it may prove of interest. 



I surmise that the bees from which our 

 present stocks have descended dwelt in the 

 primeval forest, and were very similar in 

 their habits to the modern Apis dorsaia. 

 Their migratory instincts still survive, and 

 are occasionally manifested by a "hunger 

 swarm." The building of comb in the open 

 air is also a survival. And now let us en- 

 quire why bees are subdued by smoke. 



At the first puffs of the smoker the bees 

 commence to gorge themselves on the un- 

 sealed or recently capped honey. If the 

 smoking is continued they become excited 

 and are eventually driven from the combs 

 into the air. If the queen is young and ac- 

 tive, she will take flight with the bees. I 

 look upon these actions as survivals. In the 

 past historj^ of the race they were advan- 

 tageous. 



When the world was young, and forest 

 fires resulted from volcanic and other causes, 

 the drifting smoke would bring about these 

 actions. Colonies that were terrified by the 

 smoke, and took wing with laden honey- 

 sacs escaped the fire and started afresh. 

 Successive fires would wipe out all stocks in 

 which this trait did not appear, and the jje- 

 culiarity would become strongly impre.'sed 



