1893 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



921 



>hoeknife. and should be of the best steel, with 

 the blade broken off up to about from I'o to .'i 

 inches in length, and shaped and ground down 

 to quite a slanting or beveled point, as illus- 

 trated in the cut: then by gripping the handle, 

 with the blade between the linger and thumb. 



the fine particles leak through the screen on to 

 the lap'.'] 



HEREDITY IN BEES. 



C, table, or box on legs; A, table slieK, removable: 

 B, wire screen bridge to scrape sections on; D, 

 knife for scraping-. 



the thumb acting as a gauge to gauge the point 

 just the right length to scrape the edg(^ or in- 

 side, if the honey is not worked up flush to the 

 wood without marring the honey. If the out- 

 side edges need scraping, I lay the section 

 down on the screen and scrape one edge, then 

 turn it up and scrape the inside edge of the 

 frame if it noeds it, alwavs elevating the sec- 

 tion at a suitable angle, the right-hand corner 

 resting on the screen when scraping the inside 

 edge next to the honey; then scrape toward 

 the left hand, or vice versa. Proceed in like 

 manner until every side or surface is cleaned. 

 These directions are to apply partly, when the 

 honey is not worked up flush to the wood. 



On the above illustrated honey-table this 

 season I have scraped and cleaned up about 

 2000 lbs. of filled sections, and scraped several 

 hundred of partly filled ones, kept over from 

 last year; and when they have passed through 

 my hands and over the screen bridge they need 

 no brushing or dusting off; and with the reno- 

 vating process through which they pass, if the 

 work is thoroughly done, and also rubbing the 

 cells down as described in Sept. 1st Gi>kanings, 

 they can, at least if they contain foundation or 

 comb, be used with profit. 



The fall flow of honey on buckwheat here is 

 a failure for the first time, in my recollection. 

 The same number of colonies that gathered 

 1?0(X) lbs. on the first flow have not gathered 300 

 lbs. on buckwheat. The result is, a lot of 

 empty and partly drawn-out comb, whicli I am 

 now renovating and storing away in dust-proof 

 boxes for next year's use. 



On page 710. Se\>t. 1.5th Gleanings, Emma 

 Wilson says, " Scraping a single case of sections 

 may seem to be fun; but when I have scraped 

 1000 or LWO in a day, it seems like work." 

 Whew! I think so. This beats my time. How 

 many sections do your cases hold. Emma? 



G. .1. Flansbuhgh. 



South Bethlehem, N. Y., Sept. 30. 



[We have carefully gone over your descrip- 

 tion, but do not find that you state just what is 

 the specific use of the box or tray vvith It-gs on 

 at. We iiresumeitis to receive the scrapings 

 that accumulate on the shelf A: but. say, don't 



DO CUAKAf'TKKlSTICS COMR SOLELY FROM PAR- 

 KXTS. OK .MAY THKY OME FROM NURSE- 

 BEES? 



At different times the question has been raised 

 as to what difference, or whether any differ- 

 ence, is made on the characteristics of a young 

 queen by the nurse-bees that attend her during 

 her larval existence. Given two eggs from the 

 same queen, a queen raised from each of them, 

 one of them fed and reared by Italian bees of 

 the best qualities in every direction, the other 

 fed and reared l)y the vilest lot of blacks that 

 can be found, will one queen be as good as the 

 other? Falling back on my own experience, I 

 have answered the question somewhat in this 

 way: "■ I've raised lots of queens, some of them 

 in colonies of blacks, and some in colonies of 

 Italians, and I never noticed any difference. 

 It's the queen that lays the egg that gives char- 

 acter to the offspring, as also the drone with 

 which she mated. After a hen lays an egg, can 

 you change the color or the characteristics of 

 the offspring by putting the egg under a dif- 

 ferent hen to be hatched and fed? When the 

 young queen hatches from the egg, does not the 

 same rule hold? No, I am careful to raise 

 young queens from the best stock I have; but 

 as to the nurse bees, I care nothing, only so that 

 the young queen be raised in a strong colony, 

 and at a time when plenty of food is to be had." 



But from time to time come expressions of be- 

 lief that a real, an essential difference is made 

 in the characteristics of the young queen by a 

 difference in the nurse-bees; and these expres- 

 sions come from such respectable sources that 

 they are not to be pooh-poohed and lightly put 

 aside with a wave of the hand. True, the men 

 who hold such belief are for the most part, if 

 not entirely, men who live on the other side of 

 the ocean: but they are men of weight, among 

 them Schoufeld. Bertrand, and Grimshaw, rep- 

 resentative names among German, French, and 

 British be --keepers. 



So it may be the part of wisdom not to con- 

 sider the question as one fully settled, but to 

 give it at least an impartial reconsideration. 

 Even if in all cases previously known it has 

 been found that there is no difference in the ap- 

 pearance of a young queen, whether raised by 

 black or yellow bees, it does not follow conclu- 

 sively that there is no difference in character, 

 for we well know that there may be a difference 

 in character with no perceptible difference in 

 appearance. A child may bear a striking re- 

 semblance to one parent in appearance, and be 

 more like the other parent in disposition. Is it 

 not possible, therefore, that there may be such 

 a thing as a queen having all the outward looks 

 inherited from one source, and other charac- 

 teristics, not apparent to the eye, inherited from 

 another source? 



I don't know much about the law of heredity, 

 and I don't know that the matter is very fully 

 understood at the best. Still. I think we can 

 tell something about it. W(^ know very well 

 that, in the case of the mammalia, the traits of 

 the offspring may be inherited from either par- 

 ent. A calf is born showing a color lik(^ its 

 mother and utterly unlikeits father. That col- 

 or it got from its mother; and tlie question is. 

 when and how. Very clearly, during its life in 

 tin- womb, and almost as clearly from the nour- 

 ishment received from the mother while in the 

 womb. That calf is white, like its mother, al- 

 though the fatiier is black. The germ, when 

 implanted in the womb of that mother, had no 



