June, 1919 



G I. E A NM N G S IN BEE CULTURE 



369 



tually become exhausted, or priu-tically so. 

 Speaking of drone-laj'ing queens, he says: 

 ' ' Many of these ancient danics — discarded 

 because they no longer yielded workers, or 

 only a few, amidst many drones, and these 

 produced in worker-cells — have been sent to 

 ine for dissection, and I have invariably 

 found the spermatheca quite denuded of its 

 spermatozoa, or only containing such a 

 miserable residue as to clearly show that the 

 eggs could, at the best, be but occasionally 

 fertilized. ' ' (BeesandBeekeeping, Vol.I,page 

 227.) As to the how of it, I may be allowed 

 to suggest: Nature is lavish in her provi- 

 sions for safety of fertilization: where a 

 single grain of pollen is needed on an apple 

 tree, hundreds are provided; for every drone 

 needed a thousand are born, and the only 

 wonder is that she is not more lavish in the 

 matter of spermatozoa, providing less than 

 a dozen for every one really needed. (Che- 

 shire says ' ' a prolific queen will lay, during 

 her life, 1,500,000 eggs," and the spermato- 

 zoa ' ' are, probably, not usually more than 

 4,000,000 in number." (That averages less 

 than three spermatozoa for each egg.) Well, 

 altho only a single spermatozoon may enter 

 an egg, analogy would teach that for safety 

 two or more extra ones are extruded, and 

 so it is not so hard to see that even with 

 4,000,000 present the supply may become ex- 

 hausted, making the queen a drone-layer. 

 [Of course, anyone who has ever worked 

 with bees to any extent knows that good 

 queens sometimes become drone-layers; but 

 we had supposed this was caused by the 

 queen receiving too few spermatozoa or by 

 the queen becoming so worn out that it was 

 ])hysically impossible to fertilize the eggs. 

 The suggestion made by Dr. Miller, is, how- 

 ever, doubtless correct. We find it also 

 given by Cheshire, Dr. Phillips and others. 

 According to Breslaw, the spermatozoa are 

 extruded in bundles of about one hundred 

 ea'?h, upon the eggs as they pass from the 

 vagina. — Editor.] 



* * « 



B. F. Kindig, an old adage says, ' ' Death 

 loves a shining mark." So do L So I'm 

 glad to have you for a mark while I take a 

 whack at an error that prevails even among 

 our best beekeepers. You say, page 309, 

 * ' Such beekeepers could without great trou- 

 ble maintain a drone-rearing colony headed 

 by their best queen. The next best queen 

 could be used for queen-rearing. ' ' You do 

 well to emphasize the importance of drones, 

 but have fallen into the error I s^eak of 

 by assuming that the best queen will rear 

 the best drones. I am hardly in a position to 

 throw stones at others, for I am only a com- 

 paratively recent convert to the truth, and 

 for many years made it a practice to encour- 

 age drone-rearing in a few of the best colo- 

 nies ^d to suppress them in all others. 

 When speaking of a best queen, I assume we 

 mean the queen whose workers do the best 

 work. 



A worker gets her characteristics from 

 her mother and also from the drone with 



which her mother mated. Not so with the 

 drone. He inherits only thru his mother, 

 and is not one whit affected by the drone 

 with which she mated. In fact he would be 

 precisely the drone he is if his mother had 

 not mated at all. Just as you say, "They 

 inherit all of their characteristics from their 

 mothers. ' ' He has no father but is the 

 son of his grandfather. We will not 

 go far wrong if we keep in mind that thru 

 his mother the drone inherits qualities from 

 his mother's mother, plus qualities from the 

 drone with which his mother 's mother mat- 

 ed. In other words, for his status the drone 

 harks back to his maternal grandmother 

 after she had mated. In a few words, the 

 best drone is the drone with the best grand- 

 mother. 



Sujjj^ose two virgin sisters, A and B, just 

 alike in every respect. A meets with the 

 best drone ever, and B with the worst ever. 

 A will rear good workers, and we shall call 

 her a good queen. B will rear poor workers, 

 and we shall call her a poor queen. Yet the 

 drones from the poor queen will be just as 

 good as those from the good queen, because 

 they have the same grandmother. 



You say rear drones from the best queen 

 and queens from the next best. That would 

 not give you quite the best queens, and it 

 might not give you the best drones. Here 's 

 what might be. C, the best queen, as a 

 virgin, was of stock not quite so good as D; 

 but she met a drone so much better than the 

 one D met, that as a laying queen she is the 

 best in the apiary. Yet C 's drones are not 

 as good as D 's, because D 's have the better 

 grandmother. 



Well, if we are not to rear drones from the 

 best queen, what are we to do about drones? 

 Don't do anything. Just rear queens from 

 the best queens and let the drones take care 

 of themselves. You will have some poor 

 queens, for some of your queens will meet 

 scrub drones from outside. But if you keep 

 rearing queens from the best there will be 

 none but superior drones in the apiary be- 

 cause they all have superior grandmothers. 



To those who have trouble because of pre- 

 dominance of black blood around them you 

 say, ' ' Let me suggest the rearing of such 

 an abundance of first-class drones that 

 young queens of the territory gradual- 

 ly may become Italianized." That will not 

 be easy if you rear drones only from your 

 best queen; but with my way it will be easy. 

 And please keep in mind that with the way 

 I advise the poorest queen in the apiary will 

 have just as good drones as the best, and all 

 on account of the grandmother business. 

 [These remarks are certainly of great value 

 and we are very glad to have Dr. Miller ex- 

 plain what he means by a "best queen." 

 Now, if Mr. Kindig would also give us his 

 definition, perhaps we would find little dis- 

 agreement after all. We wonder, however, 

 if it would not be a little more accurate for 

 these paragraphs to end with the word 

 "grandparents" rather than "grandmoth- 

 er ? "—Editor.] 



