GLEANIKGS IN BEE CULTURE 



workers may be placed under suneillauce. 

 For the purpose it will be better to shake 

 the colonies at this point, and to rehive them 

 upon stai'ters of foundation. The capabil- 

 ities of the colonies in the matter of comb- 

 building and honey-gathering may thus be 

 gauged, the means of practicing selection 

 are provided, and the woi-k of eliminating 

 the " unfit " may be proceeded with if this 

 latter be the object of the breeder. 



The scope of all experimental work of 

 this kind must largely be determined by the 

 originality and aim of the investigator. 

 Whether his purpose be to establish a new 

 race of bees, in which case he will probably 

 work with at least two of the ordinary races, 

 or merely to isolate the best strains in a 

 given race, his real difficulties commence 

 with his work of breeding. For this, mat- 

 ing-stations appear to be absolutely neces- 

 sary. This subject of matiug-stations has 

 received considerable attention of late years, 

 and there appear to be no obstacles in the 

 way of finding suitable localities for them. 

 The one essential condition is that there be 

 no honeybees in the neighborhood other 

 than those to be used for the special pur- 

 pose of mating. 



It should not be forgotten that similarity 

 of appearance is no sure guide to inherent 

 qualities. I heard it suggested at a recent 

 convention that yellowness in the bee indi- 

 cates abiUty to resist European foul brood; 

 that the yellower the bee the more immune 

 is it to the disease, and vice versa; that the 

 darker the bee, the smaller the degree of 

 resistance possessed by it. The evidence 

 upon which such a statement is based is of 

 the flimsiest kind. That the Italian race 

 has proved itself better able to resist Eu- 

 ropean foul brood than the black bee of this 

 continent may, perhaps, be granted. It is 

 not at all difficult, however, to adduce evi- 

 dence showing that the black bee of Britain 

 and the neighboring regions of Europe pos- 

 sesses the same degree of immunity as the 

 Italian. Two individuals, undistinguishable 

 in appearance, may show in their respective 

 progenies characters greatly differing from 

 each other. The purity, or otherwise, of a 

 queen is not decided merely by color, but by 

 the nature of the factors existing in the re- 

 productive cells which give rise to the vari- 

 ous distinguishing characters of the race or 

 strain. 



In his efforts to produce a race which 

 shall combine the gi'eatest number of desir- 

 able characters the bee-breeder of to-mor- 

 row may be under the necessity of making 

 selection from several races. His task, as 

 I have already pointed out, will be prin- 

 cipally to determine what the factors are 

 upon which the various desirable utility 



characters of the bee depend. It often hap- 

 pens, as in the case of fecundity in poultry, 

 that what appears to be a simple character 

 proves, upon analysis, to result from the 

 interaction of two or moi'e distinct factors. 

 As soon, however, as the analysis has been 

 made, and the constitution of the characters 

 expressed in terms of Mendelian factors, 

 strains can be built up which will breed 

 pure for those characters. The vague ideas 

 of past generations must give way to a 

 more exact knowledge and to clearer con- 

 ceptions of what is involved in the process- 

 es of heredity. The guidance of science 

 must be sought and followed. The prob- 

 lems arising- from the parthenogenetic na- 

 ture of the drone are largely mathematical, 

 and not by any means incapable of solu- 

 tion, while the difficulty in conti-oUing mat- 

 ings is minimized in its imj^ortance by the 

 fact that the colony is the unit we are work- 

 ing with and not the individual insect, 

 whether drone or queen. The object of the 

 breeder will be to obtain colonies in which 

 both the male and female progeny will 

 transmit to the descendent colonies the de- 

 sirable characters already analyzed, and his 

 full efforts will be directed to this end. In 

 spite of the abnormal conditions attached 

 to bee-breeding operations, in spite of many 

 difficulties of wliich even beekeepers are not 

 cognizant, one has every reason to hope 

 that, when the best and most reliable scien- 

 tific methods are applied, the same success 

 will attend the efforts of the bee-breeder as 

 has accompanied those of workers in othei 

 fields of applied agricultural science. 

 Brantford, Ont. 



How to Remove Bees from a Wall or Tree by 

 Means of a Bee-escape 



There is one little discovery I have made which 

 I have never seen described, vrhich has worked suc- 

 cessfully. When bees have located in a house or 

 tree in such a way that it is difficult or impossible 

 to remove and save the swarm, I close all exits 

 except one and place a wire cone over that one, 

 leaving a small opening through which the bees can 

 pass out but never return. The cone must be care- 

 fully tacked around its base. If a hive is conven- 

 iently placed containing a frame of brood, the bees 

 will soon take possession, and will prove to be some- 

 thing of value instead of a detriment, as is often 

 the case. I have succeeded, without the use of the 

 brood-frame, in capturing the whole swarm, which 

 was soon well provided with stores and brood. 



Long Grove, Iowa. Geo. W. Curtis. 



[The above is the principle of the Fisher plan 

 described in The ABC and X Y Z of Bee Culture. 

 A Porter bee-escape will be found rather better than 

 a cone escape, and at the end of four or five weeks 

 it should be removed to aUow the bees, the majority 

 of which are now in the hive, to rob the honey out 

 of the comos in the wall or tree. When the escape 

 is removed, sulphur smoke should be blown into the 

 opening to kill the few bees remaining and the 

 queen. A new queen must be provided for the colo- 

 ny or else young brood given from which the bees 

 can rear a queen. — Ed.] 



