American Hee Journal 



old bee-keepers who tell me they have 

 observed the same thing. What does 

 it mean ? 



When I took up the study of Men- 

 delism 1 hoped to be able to solve some 

 of the problems pertaining to the bee, 

 notably its improvement by selection 

 and breeding, but the student will be 

 disappointed with me, for the Men- 

 delian law cannot be applied to the 

 parthenogenetic insects. Could we 

 "hand-pick" our drones we might do 

 something //' we could know what the 

 queen was, that we were about to mate ; 

 but unfortunately for us, we cannot 

 hand-pick our drones before mating, 

 or know whether the queen is going to 

 be worth a politician's promise. Her 

 mother was a tine queen. Hum! Own- 

 ers of trotting mares and stallions 

 would give a pretty price if they could 

 know when they bred them that the 

 progeny would trot in swift time. 



We seem to be able to keep up fam- 

 ily markings in the bee-family, but as 

 long as bee-men will find colonies of 

 "scrubs," which produce enormous 

 crops of honey, so long will bee-keep- 

 ers doubt that there is much in "breed." 

 One of the most prominent bee- 

 keepers in the United States says: "It 

 is almtis/ imf<ossif}ti- for a queen-rearer 

 to duplicate the characteristics of his 

 breeding queen. The fact that Nature 

 has designed that there shall be pro- 

 miscuous mating among the drones 

 explains how sports, showing 'extra 

 yellow' or 'long tongues,' revert back 

 to normal type in spite of us." In 

 other words, we may, and can, and do 

 perpetuate sports in the domestic ani- 

 mals, producing plain, barred and spot- 

 ted chickens; race, general purpose or 

 draft horses, milch or meat cattle, and 

 so on down a long list of domcslic ani- 

 mals; but we may not, cannot, and do 

 not perpetuate the rare sports in the 

 family .If is, because bees are wild by 

 nature. It does not matter a whit how 

 much we may believe that a non- 

 swarming strain is possible, for belief 

 is not evidence, and some prominent 

 bee-keepers frequently acknowledge, 

 unintentionally I suppose, that we have 

 made but little progress in improving 

 the bee. 



Dr. Miller says, in reply to an en- 

 quiry (see page 117 of the American 

 Bee Journal for April, llUl) : "The 

 trouble i^. that if you get a queen of 

 that kind you are not at all sure that 

 her royal progeny will be like her." 



J. L. Byer says, page 187 of the 

 American Bee Journal for June, 1910: 



" and if I were asked what is the 



' best bee,' I should certainly say the 

 first cross of Italian queens with Car- 

 niolan drones. Unfortunately the next 

 crosses are not nearly so uniform in 

 good points as the first cross." 

 Why? 



I am inclined to the opinion that in 

 the hands of such men as Townsend, 

 Doolittle, Byer. Cook, Miller (not Dr.), 

 and others, maiiaffcminl of the bees 

 and hives hss, about as much to do 

 with honey results as has breeding or 

 selection. A colony of bees preparing 

 to swarm does not store much honey; 

 a colony lacking ever so little of being 

 "ready" for the harvest will not give 

 much surplus. I have never found 

 what was the psychological somel/iiiif; 

 which made one of my colonies give 



me last (I'.Hl) season about Km pounds 

 of surplus, comb and extracted, while 

 the year before, which was a vastly bet- 

 ter season, and the queen but '2 years 

 old, I got practically nothing. I think 

 from what I have read and from con- 

 versations with bee-keepers, that all 

 who keep bees have at some time had 

 a similar experience. 



I do not care to be rated an obstruc- 

 tionist. I am a firm believer in evolu- 

 tion, while many who write about 

 selection and breeding, "throw a fit" 

 when Darwinism is mentioned. I think 

 the survival of the fittest (and the nllist 

 among bees) an explanation of exist- 

 ing types. 



It has been evident to me from the 

 start of this discussion that some do 

 not understand the fact that a "sport," 

 which is our main hope of improving 

 the bee, is not so designated on ac- 

 count of ac/ions, but shape and color, 

 the tint of hair or shape of body. The 

 Century Dictionary says: "Sports 

 are chiefly observed among domes/ic 

 and cultivated plants." The reason is 

 plain. Most of these are the result of 

 centuries of breeding from structural 

 oddities, and are always trying to re- 

 vert to original forms. Wild animals 

 and plants almost always remain true 

 to ancestral types. The bee is not a 

 domesiic animal, and never will be. At 

 best, " domestication " is but a relative 

 term. 



We want something more than an 

 occasional colony which will give a 

 large surplus. We want a strain of 

 bees which will breed true to the type 

 of i/idus/i-y. Color is unimportant. 

 We want to be just as sure, when we 

 breed, that we shall get a certain kind 

 of bee as is the owner of the mule- 

 footed hog that he will get pigs with 

 an undivided hoof; the chicken fancier 

 that he will have black, white or striped 

 fowls. Bee-breeders come pretty close 

 to this condition of co/or, as in the 

 golden, but the verdict of the bee- 

 keeping world is against them, what- 

 ever the future has in store for this 

 strain. I insist again that i/idus/iy is 

 not a transmittable attribute, and once 

 more assert that a man is the only in- 

 telligently industrious animal alive. He 

 is the only animal that knowingly lays 

 up more stores than sufficient for im- 

 mediate or future need. The bee does 

 not k/iozf enough to do this. The more 

 specialized an animal is, the less it rea- 

 sons. The bee is the most highly spe- 

 cialized animal alive today. This, I 

 believe, cannot be gainsaid. If a col- 

 ony of bees gets a hive filled with 

 honey late in the season, it is still apt 

 to swarm or die of starvation. 



To those who have been abusing me 

 for some of my rank ideas, I refer to 

 Mr. Sieb-rt's remarks in Gleanings in 

 Bee Culture, page 402: 



" / </o no/ knozc of any ZLork in all 

 apiculture that pays so Zi'ell as ii'eedin^ 

 out poor stock," and, in my own humble 

 opinion, we have there all that has been 

 gained from studying the bee for half 

 a century. The movable-frame hive 

 was a great step — in getting honey — 

 while the few good methods of con- 

 trolling swarming and hard zcork do 

 the rest. None of these things have 

 changed the honey-bee, however, for 

 "the bee is wild by nature." 

 To shift the burden from mv own 



shoulders to those of a man of some 

 importance, I will close by quoting 

 what Prof. Cockrill says : "The honey- 

 bee is the last word in all bee-life, and 

 has become so lirnily established in her 

 position that little change has taken 

 place in her characteristics in three or 

 four million years." 

 Buck Grove, Iowa. 



Uniting Bees 



liV DR. C. r. MILLER. 



An esteemed correspondent on the 

 other side of the water has expressed a 

 desire for an e.xhaustive article upon 

 this subject. The task would be very 

 hopefully undertaken if that word " ex- 

 haustive "had been omitted. For it is 

 not at all likely that any person knows 

 enough to say all that is to be said 

 about it. 



To begin with, it must be frankly 

 confessed that the writer does not 

 fully understand why there is some- 

 times disaster when bees from two dif- 

 ferent colonies are put together in the 

 same hive. Of course, it is fully un- 

 derstood that the trouble arises from 

 the hostile attitude of bees of one col- 

 ony toward those of the other colony, 

 and especially toward the queen. But, 

 why ,•" One says that it is because each 

 colony has its own peculiar odor, 

 called hive-odor, and when a bee meets 

 another bee it at once recognizes by 

 the odor whether it be one of its own 

 sisters or a member of another colony, 

 and if the latter, then the bee with the 

 strange odor is at once considered a 

 foreigner and a foe, and is treated ac- 

 cordingly. 



But there are those who say that 

 although each colony may have its own 

 distinctive odor, that odor plays no 

 part in arousing a feeling of antago- 

 nism. AnA they cite proofs. If a bee 

 returns laden from the field, and by 

 mistake enters the wrong hive, it is 

 kindly received. But if it enters with 

 intent to rob, it is at once seized and 

 roughly treated. If the innocent blun- 

 derer has the same odor as the robber, 

 what has hive-odor to do in the case ? 

 In an apiary of dark bees, with a single 

 colony of bright, yellow bees, the latter 

 will be found scattered in many of the 

 hives. It is clear that they are kindly 

 received in spite of any odor they may 

 have. So it is argued that the deport- 

 ment of the bees, or something else 

 rather than the hive-odor, is the con- 

 trolling factor. 



Is it not possiblethat both hive-odor 

 and the behavior of the bees are factors 

 in the case ? At any rate, by acting on 

 the theory that hive-odor is an impor- 

 tant factor, good results are obtained. 

 So it may be well to proceed with 

 some practical hints as to uniting 

 bees. 



Bees unite more readily when nectar 

 is coming in plentifully from the fields. 

 Like folks, they are better-natured after 

 a full meal. Unfortunately uniting is 

 generally to be done, not in the height 

 of harvest, but in spring or fall. Feed- 

 ing may take the place of nectar from 

 the field. However, feeding is not 

 generally considered necessary. 



Uniting One Frame .\t .\ Time. 



Earlv in the season it is considered 



