760 



ItMM MmEKICKIf WWM JQ'XJWmM'Lr. 



Such gemmnles are congregated in 

 vast masses — vast by comparison — 

 and these vast masses are themselves 

 so minute that I have heard Dr. Dall- 

 inger (that prince of mieroscopists) 

 say that ten million of them might be 

 contained in a box having the diameter 

 of a human hair. If you rub the seeds 

 of the vanilla plant between the fore- 

 finger and thumb, jou find them so 

 minute that they become firmly fixed 

 in the beautiful furrows of the skin, 

 yet each of these exceedingly small 

 seeds is composed of a mass of separ- 

 ate cells, having the prepotency of 

 growth and self-divisiou — having the 

 power hidden in itself of i-eproducing 

 a perfect plant. 



Thus, " number and size are only 

 relative difficulties, the eggs or seeds 

 produced by certain animals or plants 

 are so numerous that they cannot be 

 grasped by the intellect " (Darwin) ; 

 and if " organic units during each stage 

 of development throw off gemmules, 

 which multiplying are transmitted to 

 the offspring," is it an unfair assump- 

 tion that such gemmules are handed 

 on out of the system of the nurse-bee 

 into the brood of the queen and 

 worker-bee, not by means of the 

 mouth of the brood, and thus running 

 the risk of active chemical change, 

 but into the sj'stem of the grub, which 

 seems to absorb the surrounding brood- 

 food by every pore, so to speak ? 



Let us come to the conclusion of the 

 whole matter : The points of the 

 worker are inherited, and they are also 

 handed down ; she cannot very well 

 inherit from ancestors neither of which 

 possess such points, neither can she 

 hand them forward to the generations 

 in the ordinary way. We then have 

 to find some extraordinarj' manner of 

 accomplishing this task, of overcom- 

 ing what appears to be an insuperable 

 difficulty. 



I hope I have given sufficient reason 

 for coming to the conclusion that 

 countless generations of foster-mothers 

 have been the real highways of hered- 

 ity in our bees, that as the milk-like 

 secretions of the uui'se-bee are fed 

 alike to drone, queen, and worker 

 brood, it is by this means that her 

 wonderful adaptations in structure, 

 etc., are perpetuated. 



The following discussion took place 

 after the deliverj' of the foregoing 

 essay bj' Mr. Grinishaw : 



Mr. Garrattcomijlimented Mr. Grini- 

 shaw on his very able and interesting 

 essay, but felt, speaking for himself, 

 quite unprepared to discuss it. He 

 thought it would be an excellent thing 

 if the members could be provided with 

 a syllabus of the topics tliat Mr. Grim- 

 shaw proposed to touch upon in any 



future essay. They would then be 

 enabled to think over the subjects, and 

 express opinions of more value. He 

 could not but think that Mr. Grim- 

 shaw's arguments and Conclusions were 

 of a speculative character ; for in- 

 stance, to say that the tongue of one 

 bee is not long enough to secure the 

 honey which is secreted in flowers, is 

 hardly correct. It is certain that the 

 conformation of the flowers varies so 

 much that if honey cannot be obtained 

 from one source, it can from others 

 where it is more accessible. They 

 knew that the common red clover 

 could not be fertilized by the bee un- 

 der ordinary circumstances, the hum- 

 ble-bee being the chief agent in such 

 work. 



Mr. Blow said that his views were 

 on the same line as Mr. Grimshaw's. 

 He was of the opinion that the promi- 

 nent points were transmitted by means 

 of the workers, and not by means of 

 the queen. There were so many points 

 in the workers which the queen did 

 not possess. The whole subject re- 

 quired a considerable amount of 

 thought. 



The chairman (Mr. Graham) quite 

 believed that the young of all animals 

 were physically aii'ected to a great ex- 

 tent by foster-mothers. He remem- 

 bered an instance of a cat and dog 

 living in the same house, each of 

 which had a litter of young at the 

 same time. The kittens and the pup- 

 pies were so much together that it was 

 no uncommon thing to see the dog at- 

 tending to the kittens, and the cat to 

 the puppies. The result of that was, 

 that some of the puppies developed 

 significant feline qualities. Koting 

 those facts in which only one genera- 

 tion was concerned, and bearing in 

 mind what an immense number of 

 generations of bees were evolved in 

 the lifetime of one individual, it was a 

 fair assumption that many changes in 

 bee-life might occur in a thousand 

 3'ears. Possibly the queen miglit ob- 

 tain sufficient honey for herself, but 

 she was certainly minus the wax-pro- 

 ducing faeultj'. She had no power in 

 the hive, all the government being un- 

 der the control of the workers, that 

 could stop brood-rearing whenever 

 they pleased. 



Mr. Sambels did not believe in the 

 evolution theorj- of Darwin, but he 

 thought there was something in the 

 suggestion concerning foster-mothers. 

 Unquestionably the structure of the 

 bee depended on the drone, because 

 they knew what would be the effect 

 if a black bee were fertilized by a 

 yellow drone. With regard to the 

 question of temper, he believed the 

 workers had considerable influence. 

 In the case of a colony of vicious bees, 

 tbe introduction of a quiet and amiable 



queen did not effect a change at first, 

 because the young bees were influenced 

 by the propensities of the nurses. He 

 had a friend who made a practice of 

 introducing new races, and all his 

 bees, even the Carniolans,were vicious. 



The chairman confirmed, as the re- 

 sult of his experience, Mr. Sambels' 

 views on the question of temper. 



Mr. Webster concurred in the views 

 expressed regarding the immense in- 

 fluence of foster-mothers. 



Mr. Grimshaw submitted that the 

 long tongue of the worker could not 

 have been derived from the queen, 

 which, if she wished, was unable to 

 gather honey ; at least, they had no 

 record of doing so. Even though Mr. 

 Sambels would not support the doc- 

 trine of evolution, still if he sanctioned 

 the foster-mother theory of develop- 

 ment, he (the speaker) would claim 

 him as a supporter. The queen laid 

 only queen and drone eggs — she could 

 not do otherwise ; and it was the 

 workers that determined what should 

 be the ultimate produce of the egg. 



Mr. Garratt said Mr. Grimshaw's 

 arguments rested very much upon the 

 assumption that the food supplied to 

 the 5'oung bees was prepared by the 

 nurses — an assertion which he did not 

 think had yet been established. 



The Chairman, Mr. Grimshaw, and 

 Mr. Sambels, expressed dissent. 



The Chairman moved a hearty vote 

 of thanks to Mr. Grimshaw for his 

 kindness in bringing so instructive an 

 essay under their notice, and thereby 

 setting them to thinking. He thought 

 there was a great deal of truth in the 

 " foster-mother theory." 



QUEEN-REARING. 



methods of Rearing Queens and 

 Produeing Comb Honey. 



Read at the Eric Co., N. Y., Conv&itU»i 



BY E. D. KEENEY. 



I believe that the American queen- 

 breeders have, by judicious breeding 

 and mating, made a vast improvement 

 upon the imported stock, and a demand 

 is already being made bj' foreign api- 

 arists for Amei'ican-bred queens. Per- 

 haps climate has had a hand in this 

 improvement, but this much I know, 

 that for docility, prolificness, beauty 

 and honey-gathering qualities, the 

 American-Italian bees beat the world ! 



In rearing queens, I flud it ab- 

 solutely necessary to have superior 

 fathers, as well as luothers, to proiluce 

 superior bees ; and I try to have all 

 the drones that mate with my queens, 

 reared in 2 or 3 of my choicest colo- 

 nies, by keeping in the center of their 

 brood-nest, 3 or 4 frames of all drone- 



