148 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



[Jan., 



to breed for the desirable and to breed out the 

 objectionable features of his stocks. When 

 this is done the "coming bee" will be one of 

 large producing qualities, beautiful in appear- 

 ance, amiable in disiwsition, not a large eater, 

 nor yet an enormous breeder. The large eaters 

 are not the large producers, neither do I find the 

 slightest relation between irritability and indus- 

 ti-y ; often the Grossest colony being the poorest 

 workers. This is equally true, whether among 

 blacks or Italians. In my earlier experience in 

 breeding the Italian bee, I supposed that the 

 queen that was large, yellow, and very prolitic, 

 possessed all the requisite qualities for a suita- 

 ble queen mother, provided of course that she 

 was considered pure Italian and her royal daugh- 

 ters were duplicates of herself. But 1 found by 

 selecting queens of great fertility, I could pro- 

 duce a race of bees that would increase almost 

 beyond limit, giving more of their labor to the 

 rearing of brood, than the amassing of stores, 

 and very much disposed to swarm, issuing in 

 times of scarcity of honey, being crowded out by 

 superabundance of numbers. I account for this 

 from the fact that it is the prevailing instinct of 

 the bee to rear brood and amass stores. AYith 

 some the former, while with others the latter 

 trait prevails. Under box, log, or straw hive 

 management of the black bee for ages past, the 

 inclination to run to excessive brooding was no 

 doubt kept in check by occasional jjoor honey 

 seasons, when such colonies would perish of 

 starvation. By our present system of manage- 

 ment, with movable comb-hives, and breeding 

 rather for increase of stocks than surplus honey, 

 we do not get the most productive bees. When 

 urging the matter of improvement of bees, I 

 am met with this clincher — ''bees are beex, crea- 

 tures governed by instinct, and that instinct un- 

 changed from what it was thousands of years 

 ago." But, my dear sir, does your horse, your 

 cow, your pigs, or your poultry, possess a faculty, 

 higher than instinct ? Yet who will say no im- 

 provement has been eftected in those domestic 

 animals, in the past twenty-five years." What 

 dairyman would think of stocking his farm with 

 those long-legged, slim-bodied kine that could 

 trot a mile inside of tluee minutes? Or what 

 pork-raiser would think of fattening a drove of 

 those four-legged land sharks with protruding 

 tusks, such as our fathers made bacon and sau- 

 sage of thirty or forty years ago ? (Unless he 

 possessed the feeding apparatus figured so mi- 

 nutely in the April number of the Ameuican 

 Bee Journal last spring !) No farm stock at 

 present is more susceptible of improvement, or 

 would yield more readily to the skilful hand, 

 than the honey bee. So fully am I convinced 

 of the vast field of improvement open to the 

 apiarian of the present day, in the wise selection 

 of queen mothers, that I will venture the opinion 

 that the yield of honey might be at least doubled 

 from the same number of colonies, and that too 

 without increase of bee pasturage. 



In any apiary of a hundred colonies, some 

 stocks will be found much sui^erior to others. 

 Let us step into such an apiary and select a few 

 queen mothers. They must be from stocks that 

 have come through the previous winter with 



abiindant stores, showing the workers not to 

 be enormous eaters. The queens must not be 

 less than one year old ; still better if they be two 

 or three years old, showing longevity, and no 

 attempt ever made by the progeny of either to 

 supersede her. I do not fancy the superseding 

 breed, unless it be at a time when there is a 

 manifest reason for such a procedure — as, for in- 

 stance, the queen is approaching the sunset of a 

 well-spent life. The workers must be beauties ; 

 less matter about the queen herself, on that 

 point. "Handsome is that handsome does." 

 The workers must be industrious ; not loitering 

 at home, when honey awaits them in field or 

 forest ; yet sufficiently cautious not to sally forth 

 in unpropitious weather, to return no more. 

 They must be amiable in disposition, when out 

 of the hive, not volunteering an attack on the 

 apiarian, his family, or visitors, when passing 

 near the hive. They must be reasonably good 

 wax-workers, and yet not disposed to run too 

 much to fat. I have observed both of these ex- 

 tremes, at times too when such results could not 

 be attributed to the age of the workers. 



Beekeepers have been wont to ascribe the 

 difference in the product of different colonies to 

 the nature of the combs, some having too much 

 drone comb ; others, to the hive, it " had no 

 moth trap." "Use my hive, and your swarms 

 will be all productive !" I do not ignore the 

 fact that there is often too much drone comb ; 

 nor that some hives are better than others. Yet 

 these reasons do not give a satisfactory solution 

 of the question. I present the subject of the 

 imin'ovement of our bees by the judicious selec- 

 tion of queen mothers, in view of the almost 

 total failure of fertilization in confinement ; and 

 if we breed only from such queen mothers as I 

 have indicated, a few years will rid us of all ob- 

 jectionable drones. It is a matter too of prac- 

 tical importance — ^just important to the extent 

 that it does matter whether we get fifty dollars 

 or fifty cents, each, as the profit of oiu- colo- 

 nies. In the laudable effort of ovu" best apiarians 

 to supplant the black bee by a superior kind 

 throughout all this sunlit land of ours, it is not 

 strange that breeding for superior excellence in 

 that superior variety, should for a time be lost 

 sight of, or receive inadequate attention, sb long 

 as the supposed standard of purity was main- 

 tained. 



I believe a majority of breeders of queens have 

 not only done the best they could under the cir- 

 cumstances, but have done nobly. They have 

 planted largely, but the pruning time is at hand. 

 Let unprofitable queens be gently prepared for 

 decent burial, as soon as better ones are ready to 

 take their places. Let our motto bee i?)iprove- 

 ment, onward and still onward ; if we woitld reap 

 the best results in the fascinating pursuit of bee- 

 culture. 



In conclusion, Mr. Editor, allow me to express 

 the hope that friend Gallup may be able to see 

 the " 7-ea8(37i why" not all queens of equal purity 

 are suitable queen mothers ; and that to main- 

 tain the Italian as a "fixed race" is not alone 

 sufficient for our purpose. 



W. J. Davis. 



Youngsville, Fa., Dec. 1871. 



