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GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



May 1 



ed in Italian, if he had ever seen in Italy bees 

 having only one or two yellow bands. He 

 says: "I have seen them with one yellow 

 band, but very rarely. They more frequently 

 have two more or less yellow." Mr. Chas. 

 Dadant, writing on this subject in Revue In- 

 ternationale, says, ' ' I have already noticed 

 that drones from imported Italian queens are 

 more or less yellow, and at times entirely 

 black, as the queens themselves happened to 

 be. I have introduced into my apiary more 

 than 2000 Italian queens since I began import- 

 ing, and I have never yet found a single queen 

 producing regularly drones that one could 

 consider as Italians, judging by color." 



BRITISH BEE-JOURNAL. 



The following, relative to the poison of the 

 bee, appeared originally in a German bee- 

 journal. It was translated by Mr. R. Hamlyn- 

 Harris. It seems to throw some additional 

 light on this subject. 



The inflammation and other unpleasant symptoms 

 which usually appear after a bee sting are often at- 

 tributed to that sharp acid so widely distributed in 

 the animal kingdom, and known under the name of 

 formic acid. This fluid, however, has nothing to do 

 with the swellings; its utility to the bees is of quite 

 another character. Professor Joseph l,anger, of 

 Prague, a little while ago, examined the contents of 

 the poison-glands of 25,000 bees. This he found to be 

 a clear fluid, soluble in water, tastes bitter, and has a 

 pleasant aromatic smell, which, however, soon passes 

 away ; this scent can not, therefore, be the poison. 

 The formic acid which gives its peculiar acid reaction 

 to the contents of the gland is also very evanescent. 

 The contents of the gland itself retain their poison- 

 ous properties, however, even when dried and sub- 

 jected to heat. The poison is, we therefore suppose, 

 a vegetable base, an alkaloid, as the most active poi- 

 sons in the vegetable kingdom are known to be. 



Professor I,anger proved that the poison has no ef- 

 fect whatever on a healthy skin ; if, however, injected 

 under the skin, all the symptoms of bee-stings set in. 

 Should it reach the larger veins or arteries it causes a 

 general disorder of the system which reminds one of 

 snake-poisoning. The weight of the poison injected 

 into the wound made by a bee's sting is between 

 ^noTtnth and xijjjjsijth part of a gram. The largest part 

 of this is formic acid, which is such an important fac- 

 tor for the well-being of the bees. This works as a 

 means of preserving the honey, owing to its acid re- 

 action. The bee allows a little formic acid to fall into 

 each cell filled with honey before it is closed or seal- 

 ed, and this small quantity is enough to prevent fer- 

 mentation. Honey extracted from unsealed combs 

 never keeps long unless 0.1 per cent formic acid be 

 added, which is all that is required. 



THOROUGHBRED QUEENS. 



What do we Know about them ? 



BY ARTHUR C. MILI,ER. 



The excellent article by Mr. H. L. Jeffrey, 

 on the " Value of Breeding-stock," Feb. 1, is 

 most timely, and touches a .subject which 

 needs to be more generally written about and 

 discussed. The editor's comments were a sur- 

 prise to me, for I had presumed that, of course, 

 he was familiar with the subject of biology. 



Evidently he is not alone in his position, for 

 an inspection of the text-books and journals 

 reveals a grievous lack of familiarity with 

 such authors as Huxley, Darwin, Spencer, 

 Haeckel, and others in the same field. Prof. 

 Cook, although referring to some of them, 

 does so in only the briefest way, while the 

 Revised Langstroth has but a footnote by Mr. 

 Dadant on in-and-in-breeding, p. 87. Aside 

 from the foregoing there is virtually nothing 

 in our text-books which tends to call the stu- 

 dent's attention to even the existence of laws 

 of heredity, to say nothing ©f their applica- 

 tion. If the authors of our text-books are si- 

 lent on these subjects, and if the editors of 

 our journals are ignorant of them, it is not to 

 be wondered at that the thorough breeding of 

 queen -bees is in a much mixed and unsatisfac- 

 tory condition. 



Apparently very few of the rearers of and 

 dealers in queens know what " thoroughbred " 

 means, yet their advertisements would lead 

 one to believe that they did, and that they 

 were, consequently, familiar with the laws of 

 heredity and the steps necessary to turn them 

 to their advantage. When a queen-rearer who 

 is ignorant of these laws, or who, knowing 

 them, ignores them, advertises choice-bred 

 queens and breeding-stock, he is doing a di- 

 rect injury to the bee-keeping industry. The 

 use of the terms "choice bred," "straight 

 golden breeders," "breeding-queens," etc., 

 implies that the person claiming to have such 

 stock has produced it according to the well- 

 recognized laws of breeding ; that for many 

 generations the ancestry of this stock was pure 

 and potent, and that these " breeders " will 

 produce offspring which, when properly mat- 

 ed, will maintain the same traits as their par- 

 ents, with virtually no variation. Just how 

 many queen-rearers care to affirm that for their 

 stock ? 



"Thoroughbred" is not "crossbred," as 

 any high - class stock - raiser will testify. 

 Thorough breeding is cautious, careful, scien- 

 tific in-breeding (do not confound this with 

 in-and-in breeding); and when alien blood is 

 introduced the result can never be foretold 

 with certainty, the chances being toward ata- 

 vistn, the reverting to a previous type. 



Let those queen-rearers who would progress, 

 read and re-read the very best authorities on 

 biology which they can get, and then let them 

 try to apply what they have learned. The 

 works on the subject are many ; and unless 

 the student is enthusiastically interested by 

 the time he has read two or three of the lead- 

 ing works he had better drop the business of 

 stock-rearing, for he will never win fame or 

 be truly successful at it. The true stock-breed- 

 er is an enthusiast of the first grade, of high 

 ideals, exhaustless patience, and a determina- 

 tion which nothing can waver ; and I believe 

 the love of it must be born in one. I do not 

 think it can be acquired. 



Will the editors of our journals and the au- 

 thors of our text-books please own up to what 

 they know of this subject ? and will those of 

 them who are posted kindly give us articles 

 which will arouse the whole fraternity ? 



It is high time we began to be scientific in 



