THE AMERICAN APIGULTURIST. 



43 



''Dzierzoii Theory," lie will get the 

 "true inwiirduoss" of the niiitter as 

 generall}' understood. I don't be- 

 lieve such drones will be absolute- 

 ly pure ; others do. No one as 

 yet has fully i)roved the matter by 

 tests, and the subject is too serious 

 to be discussed fully in this de- 

 partment. It is a matter of theory 

 as yet, and until fertilization in 

 confinement is made practical and 

 practicable, 1 don't knovv how act- 

 ual proofs can be obtained. One 

 thing is certain, if the drone by 

 fecundation does not affect the 

 purit^' of the queen, then the Apis 

 differs from all the other forms of 

 animal life. It won't do, however, 

 to make positive assertions in re- 

 gard to any of the hidden mysteries 

 attending the process of concep- 

 tion anil the life that follows after, 

 as nature works in her ovvn pecu- 

 liar wa}^ and in accordance with 

 rules that as yet are not fully un- 

 derstood, to say the least. 



ANSWER BY PROF. COOK. 



I am fully of the opinion that if 

 a queen is pure, of any breed, the 

 drones will be likewise pure. We 

 know that the drone comes from 

 an unimpregnated egg. There is no 

 question of the truth of this. Then 

 if the drone is affected by the mat- 

 ing of its mother queen, it comes 

 — must come — through the influ- 

 ence of the mere presence of the 

 sperm cells in the s|)eruiatheca of 

 the queen. That such an influence 

 is possible is [)ossibly true. But 

 from theory or science alone I 

 should donl)t it. 



When Mr. Jones went to Europe 

 I got one of his first Syrian queens 

 so as to study this matter thor- 

 ou«?hly ; as all who have had Sy- 

 rians know the drones of this race 

 are very distinctly marked. I 

 reared hundreds of drones from my 

 Syrian queens mated with Italian 

 drones, and did not see a single 



case of apparent hybridity. 'J'jiis 

 satisfied me. I believe those who 

 have su[)posed they have evidence 

 to ti)e contrary did not have pure 

 queens to begin with. My experi- 

 ment was very thorough as I had 

 no questicm as to queens, and 

 reared hundreds of drones. 



ANSWKU BY G. W. DEMAREE. 



According to Dzierzon's theory 

 such drones are of the same blood 

 of their mother and therefore pure 

 as the mother is pure. I know 

 that virgin queens will produce 

 drones without the intervention of 

 the male, for I have tested the 

 matter by actual experiment. But 

 it has not been proven that such 

 drones are capable of propagatino- 

 the race. So far as I have experi- 

 mented, the evidence is in favor of 

 their impotency. If this should 

 be confirmed l)y further experi- 

 mentation, it would settle the ques- 

 tion as to the necessity of the in- 

 tervention of the male to propagate 

 male and female, and would answer 

 the question of the querist in the 

 negative, p'or it is evident that if 

 tlie intervention of the male is 

 necessaiy to the potency of the 

 male offspring that settles the ques- 

 tion of purity of blood, when a 

 male of a different race to the 

 queen mates with her. So certain 

 am I of this position that I reject 

 all drones but tiiose of purely mat- 

 ed queens when I am breeding for 

 pure stock. 



ANSWER BY DR. TINKER. 



A pure Italian queen mated to a 

 drone of any other race will not pro- 

 duce pure Italian drones. 



In the use of the word hybrid I 

 think it should be restricted to the 

 radical crosses between the yellow 

 and black races, as the Italians 

 with Germans or Carniolans. 



Crosses between the yellow races 

 or black races should be termed 



