.Tl'xk, 1913 



(i I, K \ N 1 N (i 



I N P. K I'', (' IM. 'I' I' K 



FROM THET^IELDX)F EXPERIENCE'-"^ 



CONVERSATIONS with DOOLITTLE 



The Desirability of Breeding from Queens Having 

 a Pedigree 



"I see tluit ;i Michigan dealer in small 

 fruit plants claims that he has made great 

 improvement in strawberries by selecting 

 the best and strongest specimens, both in 

 plant and berries of certain kinds, till ho 

 has some of these kinds brought to perfec- 

 tion in every respect, or ver}' nearly so. I 

 know that animal life does not stand on the 

 same plane as does vegetable life, but why 

 cannot beekeepers work along the same line 

 in the im])rovement of bees, working through 

 the drones and queens?" 



Our questioner has touched on something 

 about which T have been frequently asked 

 by those who kept bees and also horses, 

 cows, and poultry, they claiming that the 

 latter three had been much improved thru 

 a pedigreed course for a term of years, while 

 bees were very little better than when the 

 first queens were brought to this country 

 from Italy. It is a common saying that 

 ' ' like produces like, ' ' and it is true in a gen- 

 eral way. It is also true that in the breed- 

 ing of animals, and especially so with bees, 

 that the. parent transmits not only its own 

 qualities, but that of its ancestors, it may 

 be for many generations. A lecturer at a 

 teachers' institute was asked when a 

 child 's education should begin, and made 

 answer, "Begin with his grandfather." I 

 am told that breeders of horses admit an 

 animal to be th^robred, that has been cross- 

 ed for eight or ten generations. 



There is no question about the importance 

 of selecting our breeding queens from our 

 most honey-productive colonies; and not 

 only that, but it is even more important, if 

 we would secure the best results, that also 

 the ancestors of our breeders should have 

 been from extra-producing colonies, and 

 that, for many generations. And this an- 

 cestral selection is of more importance when 

 it comes to the drone, as nearly all agree 

 that the father has more to do with pedi- 

 greed results than does the mother. And 

 right here is where our improvement in bees 

 has been so slow. The experience of the 

 writer has been that, even with the cost 

 and labor of getting and keeping hand-pick- 

 ed drones, no such advance can be or has 

 been made as can be done, where we have 

 as complete control of tlie father, as with 

 the other stock usually kept by the -'';,ri- 

 culturist. 



There are two ways of securing a pedi- 

 greed stock, and the one so far touched upon 

 is the way mostly used by our breeders of 

 queen bees. The other way, and the one I 

 have worked hard u[)on, is that of eliminat- 

 ing the undesirable qualities found in my 



most piodrn'tive colonies. My desire has 

 been iKit only to build u]) all desirable traits, 

 but to weed out all that did not make for 

 success. As vindictive disposition in bees 

 mars much of the pleasure of ai)iculture, and 

 also hinders work in the apiary, I have su- 

 ])erse(le(l the (pieens of such colonies having 

 a vindictive disposition, suiii)lanting them 

 with others of the same productive stock, 

 reared from the best tempered colonies. 



In this selection I have also been careful 

 about other undesirable traits, among which 

 was the tendency to build an excessive 

 amount of brace- and burr-combs. These 

 are a nuisance, even with extracted honey, 

 and with comb honey brace-combs are the 

 means of spoiling the nice capping of other 

 sections beside the one from whicla they are 

 built out. And bees which have burr-combs 

 ' ' on the brain, ' ' concentrate much of their 

 efforts in plastering different places with 

 wax, instead of expanding in securing the 

 largest yield of honey, to say nothing of the 

 objectionable trait, necessitating frequent 

 scraping of the top-bars and super bottoms. 



Next came the weeding out of the queens 

 giving short-lived bees, and breeding from 

 such as would carry bees, emerging in Aug- 

 ust, over to the next June; also such as 

 "would carry over from May to the close of 

 the buckwheat flow in September. This has 

 always seemed a more profitable field than 

 working for more prolific queens, which 

 generally gave bees requiring two genera- 

 tions to be reared and fed during the mair 

 flows of nectar. 



Drones should be as closely looked after 

 as possible, as they have no sire. Most 

 breeders of queens have been lookuig at 

 what they consider "the business end," the 

 workers. But these have a sire, and partake 

 of characteristics, from both sides; conse- 

 quently, a pedigree based on the workers 

 may take in almost everything where there 

 are a mixed multitude of bees in box hives 

 and apiaries, and whei;e the beekeepers pay 

 no attention to the matter of drones on all 

 sides of our pedigreed stock, for a distance 

 of five miles. And at even a greater dis- 

 tance than five miles, a few of our choice 

 queens may go astray in their mating. As 

 hinted at before, about our only way to 

 e\'en ])artially overcome this drone matter, 

 is to keep the drones from our improved 

 thorobred stock till after the drones, not 

 desired in our own apiary and surrounding 

 country, have been killed off in September. 

 Unless such a course is pursued our work for 

 improved stock will tend toward a general 

 mixing instead of developing desirable 

 characteristics. 



If I have made myself "plain" in this 

 matter, it will be seen that it is very im- 

 portant to use good queens from our most 



