82 



THE AMERICAN APICULTURIST. 



From the brood of this so- fertil- 

 ized queen, Mr. Vogel reared some 

 daughters, selected again and pro- 

 ceeded in the same way. In every 

 generation the desired character- 

 istics were fixed more and more, 

 and during twelve generations the 

 new race was constant in color and 

 characteristics. Tliis race was like 

 the Italians, but the white hairs 

 are still kept in the apiary of Mr. 

 Vogel in forty colonies. 



So we see it is necessary to select 

 queens and drones for a number of 

 generations to get a new and fixed 

 race. After this less care in select- 

 ing is necessary. This is a second 

 important fact for breeding a new 

 race ; if we only cross, and then stop 

 selecting, the wished-for cliaracter- 

 istics will disappear after a while. 



In tlie same way were Italian 

 queens mated to Egyptian drones, 

 and when so bred the bees showed 

 all the crossness of the Egyptian 

 bees. Egyptian queens mated to 

 Italian drones produced worker-bees 

 as gentle as Italians. So it is proved 

 that these characteristics are trans- 

 mitted by the drones. The same 

 experiment proved tliat prolificness 

 is transmitted by the queen. This 

 is another important fact. 



Another experiment was made to 

 see the effect of in-and-in breeding. 

 Tlie Egyptian queens make it pos- 

 sible to do this in shorter time than 

 by another race, because they lay 

 drone-eggs in the first year, and in 

 a strong colony two or three weeks 

 after fertilization. 



A young queen was mated to a 

 drone of the same mother. As soon 

 as this queen had brood, fiom this 

 brood some young queens were at 

 once reared, and mated to drones 

 of the second mother. So genera- 

 tion after generation was reared 

 by tnce6'M)reeding. 



By tills incest-breeding something- 

 unexpected appeared again. No 

 difference was remarkable until tlie 

 tenth generation. The queen of the 

 tenth generation laid many drone- 



eggs in worker cells besides worker- 

 eggs. In every generation this evil 

 gets worse. Soon two-thirds of the 

 eggs laid were drone-eggs, and in 

 one case with the sixteenth, and in 

 another with the eigliteenth gener- 

 ation, not a single worker egg was 

 laid, and so the experiment stopped. 

 The spermatheca of these queens 

 were full of spermatic fluid and 

 nothing was to be seen to explain 

 this fact. 



This is very interesting again and 

 proved that theory is sometimes 

 mistaken. Tlie common result of 

 in-breeding is barrenness and so we 

 concluded that by in-breeding, the 

 prolificness of tlie queens would be 

 eventually lessened ; but we over- 

 looked the fact that the several func- 

 tions of bees are somewhat different 

 from other animals. Nature works 

 in a more radical wa}^ A queen not 

 prolific enough would be superseded 

 by the bees, but a drone-egg-laying 

 queen is suredeathof the colony, and 

 so nature breeds out tlie incestus. 



Some beekeepers believe they 

 have observed less prolificness of 

 queens caused by in-breetling. This 

 is an excusable mistake. We ex- 

 pected this result and if the fact of 

 less prolificness appeared by any 

 unknown cause, we were at once 

 willing to find the cause in in-breed- 

 ing. But nobody before Mr. Vogel 

 or besides him, had experimented 

 with so many generations, and every 

 beekeeper acquaintad with queen - 

 breeding can tell what amount of 

 time, labor and patience is required 

 to do such experimenting. More 

 credit belongs to Mr. Vogel as he 

 could not expect any income in dol- 

 lars and cents by his ex[)eriments, 

 but the love for the science only 

 was his motive, and the important 

 results his salary. 



By these experiments we see on 

 the one side, the result of in-breed- 

 ing, but on the other side, that a 

 moderate in-breeding is not as dan- 

 gerous as some beekeepers think it 

 is. 



