93b 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Dec. 1 



The law of the bee-trade, so far as discov- 

 ery is concerned, seems to be in an unsatis- 

 factory state as to the relative rights of 

 trespassers. The relative rights of parties, 

 both of whom acknowledge the superior 

 right of the owner of the soil, seem never 

 to"have been precisely described. 



KKCLAIMED BEES MAY BE KECOVEKED FROM 

 TREE. 



We have treated bees found in trees as 

 wild and unreclaimed; but a different rule 

 of law applies to bees that have been re- 

 claimed and once hived. If bees temporari- 

 ly escape from the hive of their owner who 

 keeps them in sight, and marks the tree 

 into which they enter, and is otherwise able 

 to identify them, they belong to him and 

 not to the owner of the soil. In such a case 

 the property draws after it possession suffi- 

 cient to enable the owner of the bees to 

 maintain trespass and recover damages 

 against a third person who fells the tree, 

 destroys the bees, and takes the honey, 

 notwithstanding such owner himself is lia- 

 ble to" trespass for entering on the land of 

 another for a similar purpose without au- 

 thority. The right of ownership continues; 

 and, though he can not pursue and take 

 them without being liable for trespass, still 

 this difficulty does not operate as an aban- 

 donment of the bees to their liberty by na- 

 ture. Hence the dictum that " the oivncr of 

 the soil is entitled to the tree and all within 

 it " is true only so far as respects an unre- 

 claimed swarm. 



We have endeavored, so far as case law 

 is concerned, to define the rights of the 

 finder of bees and a person interested in 

 the soil, and between persons each claim- 

 ing to be the finder, and between licensees 

 ha" ing authority to enter the land of anoth- 

 er to take bees and honey. 



In addition to authorities already cited, 

 see Idol v. Jones, 2 Dev. (N. Car. ), L., Ib2; 

 Goff V. Kiltz, 15 Wend, i N. Y.), 550; Wal- 

 lis V. Mease, 3 Brim. (Pa.), 546. 



HEREDITY AND THE VARIATION IN ANIMALS. 

 The Fundamental Rule of Uniformity. 



BY RIP VAN WINKLE. 



Referring to a Straw, in your Oct. 15th 

 edition, asking a question, "What is a test- 

 ed queen?" I will take the risk of your 

 quoting Pope's celebrated line, "Fools rush 

 in where angels fear to tread," and make a 

 suggestion if you will permit; and with all 

 due deference" to Dr. Miller, for I may al- 

 ways say of him on bee-keeping, as James 

 Russell Lowell does of the ' ' Bosting' ' people, 

 "Wat they don't know ain't hardly wuth 

 the know in'." I do not see much difficulty 

 in determining the matter if we go by the 

 fundamental rule of uniformity in her work- 

 •ers. Any queen which produces all uni- 

 formly marked workers— all three-banded 

 or all five-banded— I should pronounce pure 

 Italian. Mr. Darwin, in his "Plants and 



Animals under Domestication," has shown 

 by abundant evidence that the tendency of 

 all crosses is for ofl'spring to revert back to 

 some previous ancestor, near or remote. 

 This, of course, is among vertebrates; for 

 we have few if any well-defined experiments 

 as to insects. We know that the cross be- 

 tween a black drone and Italian queen pro- 

 duces workers of all three degrees; viz., of 

 pure black, one band; two bands and three 

 bands, from the same queen. I should ex- 

 pect to find the rule hold good among five- 

 banded bees, which I regard as only a re- 

 cent "sport" from the Italian, not a dis- 

 tinct variety. A queen of the five-banded 

 stock may throw a variety of hands in her 

 workers, and still be pure or purely mated; 

 but if she throws a black worker, or one 

 with less than the three normal Italian 

 bands, then I would say she was impurely 

 mated. 



Heredity, the variation of animals under 

 domestication, the laws of breeding, are 

 very interesting studies, and all the more 

 from being intensel}' intricate, as is instanc- 

 ed by another fact bearing on this same 

 subject, mentioned by Dr. M. and yourself 

 on the next page of Straws, 814, about the 

 influence, or, as Mr. Darwin would call it, 

 the "prepotency," of the male in the matter 

 of the negro and white woman, and black 

 and white fowls. These are not isolated 

 instances. There are many such on record, 

 and it is extremely difficult to sav what the 

 extent of such influence is. 



Prof. Cook, in his "Manual of the Api- 

 ary,'" second edition, 1878, page 89, under 

 the general heading of " Influence of the 

 Drone." is inclined to think, as Dr. Miller 

 does, that the influence is not sufficient to 

 vitiate the blood of the offspring in mam- 

 mals, but only a temporary one. It might 

 add to our knowledge if some one would 

 breed from one of these marked oft'spring and 

 note the result; and I would say the point 

 to be ascertained would be whether such 

 influence produced not merely change of 

 color, but any well-defined change in the 

 program from the known characteristics of 

 the brood, wliich would be of most impor- 

 tance to the breeder. There is a case on 

 record of a thoroughbred English mare be- 

 ing bred to a jack, and having a mule colt; 

 and, though bred to thoroughbreds after- 

 ward, her progeny showed mule markings. 

 But it is not stated that their other thorough- 

 bred qualities were changed, which, I re- 

 peat, would be the practical question for 

 the breeder. 



Just iiow far the question of parthenogen- 

 esis in bees, discovered by Dzierzon, would 

 modify the fundamental laws of heredity 

 which we have learned about other domestic 

 animals, remains to be ascertained; for up- 

 on this subject, to quote the words of Dar- 

 win. "Our ignorance is profound." 



[There may be something in what you 

 say, to the eftect that queens of the five- 

 banded stock would, if they had met a 

 black drone or a h3'brid, show the fact in 



