14 



THE AMERICAN APICULTURIST. 



he does not appear on the scene till 

 all danger of chilling brood is past. 

 Hence, his presence to help warm 

 the hive is merely a dream of some 

 who are not satisfied with the facts 

 that the drone has but one function 

 hi the economy of bee life. But on 

 the other hand, that the drone has 

 no weapons of defence, bears per- 

 secution -patiently, and submits to 

 his fate when he can do no better, 

 are, to my mind, no evidence that he 

 is a coward. 



I wish to record here my convic- 

 tions, after long observation, that the 

 male honey bee, or drone, is thor- 

 oughly "game," though powerless to 

 resent an indignity. With these 

 things alone before me, I confess 

 that I could not decide with any satis- 

 faction to myself as to the potency 

 of the sex in the economy of bee 

 life. It required practical experi- 

 ment to satisfy me on this point. 

 Well, when Mr. Jones made his first 

 importation of pure Cyprian bees to 

 this country, I procured through Mr. 

 A. I. Root a piece of comb contain- 

 ing some newly hatched larvte, and 

 some freshly laid eggs, by one of the 

 first Cyprian queens imported by Mr. 

 Jones. From this piece of comb 

 I reared seven queens, and got six 

 of them mated by Italian drones, and 

 contrary to my expectation the 

 worker bees of these queens were 

 exceedingly quiet and gentle. The 

 following season I had plenty of pure 

 Cyprian drones, in accordance with 

 the Dzierzon theory, and I found 

 that when these Cyprian drones 

 mated with a queen, her progeny was 

 fierce and unmanageable. I found 

 also, that the same phenomena 

 showed themselves when crossing 

 black and Italian bees. A black queen 

 mated by an Italian drone gives gen- 

 tle workers, while an Italian queen 

 mated by a black drone gives fierce 

 and spiteful hybrids. Such I have 

 found to be a general rule. I there- 

 fore conclude that the queen trans- 

 mits nearly all the qualities that go 



to make up the character of the 

 worker bees except as to tempera- 

 ment. The potency of the drone 

 prevails when it comes to transmit- 

 ting temperament and in no other 

 respect. Now for the application. 



When selecting my breeding stock, 

 the "queen mother" must represent 

 the type or qualities I wish to de- 

 velop. I have never been able to 

 rear good bees from an inferior 

 mother, no matter what were the 

 mothers of the drones that were to 

 mate the queens. I look to my 

 breeding queens for the peculiar type 

 of workers I want, and to the drones 

 for temperament. Had I such a 

 colony as is described in the second 

 paragraph of the query, I should rear 

 queens from the "high-strung" 

 mother and have them mated by 

 drones from gentle Italian colonies, 

 and thus I should expect to tone 

 down the high temper without chang- 

 ing any other qualities in the work- 

 ers. 



To perpetuate certain qualities in 

 bees, we must go on breeding from 

 such queens as show most distinctly 

 the desirable traits, and observe as 

 to whether we progress toward the 

 desired end. Perseverance alone 

 will bring success. Since we may 

 now use drone guards and drone 

 traps, and thus control the males as 

 well as the females, we may get on 

 with much more certainty than we 

 could heretofore. 



ANSWERS BY J. E. POND. 



This query opens up the question 

 of the way and manner of improving 

 stock of all kinds ; and the same 

 rule that applies to cattle, horses and 

 fowls will apply to bees, in a some- 

 what modified form. The rule in 

 farm stock, generally, is to breed from 

 the best specimens, always taking 

 into consideration as an important 

 factor, the desirable points to be per- 

 petuated, and the eradication of un- 

 desirable qualities. This can 

 easily be done (though it takes a 



