I'JSE BEL-KEEPERS- REVIEW. 



247 



fore c'lositiij. He wishes to know wliottier 

 the l)lrtck queeus would not lie 'Im ijcr. Jiner, 

 aud more iirolijic,' hud the ritrlit coiir.se of 

 breediu^ beeu pursued. .\11 of my exper- 

 ieuce goes to prove that iiu ex.!eedini,'ly 

 large (jueeu is rarely if over as yood as one 

 of medium size: aud if it is meaut that a 

 large queen is 'tiuer' than one uot so large, 

 I must dififer from the oue asking the ques- 

 tion. 



".\ very large queen seems to be less ac- 

 tive than a medium sized (pieen, and so far 

 as my experience goes they ca'not l)e de- 

 pended upon to bring the colony up to the 

 greatest strength at the pleasure of the 

 apiarist so well as can queeus of lesser size. 

 In fact, a very smnll q'leen will often give 

 much better results than these large ones. 



" Not long ago I received about the small- 

 est queen I ever saw from a party in the 

 south who wrote, 'This queen is very small, 

 but seems to be prolific, so we send her to 

 you. If she does !i()t prove good we will 

 send another.' Well, that (pieen filled her 

 hive with brood, and kept it tilled much bet- 

 ter than any of the other queens the xiarty 

 sent me and gave sjilernhd results, thus 

 proving that large siz^ in a <iuoen wa< uot of 

 so much advantage as many suppose. 



" The old saying that • You cannot tell liy 

 the looks of a toad how far he can jump,' ap- 

 plies equally as well to a (}ueeu as to any 

 other thing. The queen that is capable of 

 producing the desired number of worker 

 bees in just the right time for honey harvest, 

 atid these workers have the desired energy 

 in securing the harvest (all minor qualities 

 being equal > is the (jneen which will give the 

 best result, be she large or small, but, as a 

 rule the "-eal moneyed results will generally 

 eo with the queen of medium size, for she is 

 the most apt to give the bees as above." 



I To improve bees by breeding or selection 



i.s a very difficult thing to do. Oue of the 

 greatest obstacles being the uncertainty of 

 how the (jueens will mate, that is. of what 

 kitid of a drone they will meet. How well- 

 nigh hopeless would be the im[)rovement of 

 our domestic animals were we as powerless 

 to control their m-iting as we are the mating 

 of queens. Of course, it can be controlled 

 to a certain extent. The clipping of the 

 ends of both wing*, as practiced by Mr. 

 Aspinwall, is a stet) in the right direction, as 

 it secures the mating of a large majority of 

 the queens in the home yard. The control- 

 ling of the production of drones in undesir- 

 able stocks, or the prevention of their flight 

 by the means of traps, and the rearing of 

 large qua"tities of drones in the most desir- 

 able colonies is another step in the right di- 

 rection, but the control is not absolutely 

 certain. If we find some colony that is very 

 desirable for several reasons, or for one, for 

 that matter, we can rear cjueens from that 

 colony, and from some other desirable col- 



ony we can rear an abundance of drones, 

 and there are i)robal)ilities, if the care men- 

 tioned is taken, that we will secure the do- 

 sired crosses, but it is the uncertainty that 

 upsets our progress. The breeder of domes- 

 tic animals carefully notes the character- 

 istics of this female aud that male, and then 

 pairs his animals in a way that he expects 

 will bring desirable results. The bee keeper 

 cannot do this, with any certainty. What 

 Mr. Doolittle says about the fixedness of the 

 black bees, as compared with the Italians, is 

 true. As a rule, colonies of black bees are 

 more neaily alike in characteristics than is 

 the case with Italians. It is likely that the 

 black variety is much the older: that it has 

 been bred somewhere in its purity for cen- 

 turies, and thus become fixed in character- 

 istics. 



There is one very fortunate point in this 

 matter, and that is that Nature is on our 

 side in this matter. Not so in the case of 

 our domestic animals and fowls. The long 

 horns, big bones and tough, wiry muscles 

 developed in the wild ox in his fight for an 

 existence are not what we need in our beef 

 cattle, and we have proceeded to get rid of 

 them. It is the same with our sheep, hogs 

 and poultry. The fight for existence in the 

 case of the bee has developed the very char- 

 acteristics that we most desire, such as hard- 

 iness, power of flight, honey gathering abil- 

 ities, etc. 



The black bee possesses some very desir- 

 able characteristics, but taken all in all, the 

 majority of bee keepers find the Italian the 

 more desirable bee, and by doing what 

 little we can in the way of selection in 

 breeding, there is no question but what the 

 Italian variety may yet be improved. It is 

 likely that something might be dtme with 

 the black variety, but its characteristics are 

 so firmly fixed that it would certainly require 

 a long time. 



I must also endorse what Mr. Doolittle 

 has to say regarding the size of queens. A 

 large queen is beautiful to look ui)on, but 

 some of the best results I ever obtained came 

 from colonies with medium sized or small 

 queen*. I have been surprised sometimes in 

 looking over a colony booming over with 

 bees and piling up the sections of honey, to 

 find the queen a very insignificant looking 

 insect. Let a (jneen breeder send out large 

 (|ueens and [)raises will be poured into his 

 ears, but let the queens be small and his 

 ears will tingle in a different way. 



