50 



THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW 



Mendelism — A Reply to Mr. Snyder. 



THE DOCTOR SUPPORTS HIS FIRST POSITION.— SAYS WE CAN MAKE 



A THOUSAND COLONIES OF BEES ANYTHING WE CARE TO, 



SIMPLY BY KILLING OFF THE DRONES NOT WANTED. 



By DR. A. F. BONNEY, Buck Grove, la. 



^V EFERRINO to Mr. Snyder's article in the Review for 

 ^{^ December, page 443, his 6D's,and 6T's will not breed true, 

 if I understand the Mendelian scheme, for one has to go to 

 the fourth or fifth generation to get this result when we have ten 

 T's and six D's. I think Mr. Darbishire, in "Breeding and the 

 Mendelian Discovery," will support this contention. However, I 

 dismiss that as wholly 

 irrelevant to the matter 

 in question, the impove- 

 ment of bees, because 

 Mendelism does not 

 seem to apply to the 

 parthenogenetic insects. 

 I will quote Mr. Dar- 

 bishire, who writes me 

 as follows : 



"1 am much inter- 

 ested in your account 

 of your experiment with 

 bees. The result is a 

 puzzle to me. I am 

 hoping to tackle the 

 bee literature thorough- 

 ly, and if I come across 

 anything which throws 

 light on the subject I 

 will let you know." 



And yet Mr. Snyder seems to think he has solved the problem 

 at his first attempt ! 



As to Mr. Snyder's diagram on page 444, it is neither }*Ien- 

 delism nor reason. Observe diagram above. As I have mentioned 

 before, the new law of heredity does not apply to parthenogenesis. 

 We can mate our male and female bees but once, which is fatal to 

 investigation. Moreover, his claim that a "BI Hybrid Black Queen 

 mated to a BI Hybrid Black Drone will give out of every four eggs 



"lA — A pure Italian worker, virgin or drone; 

 "1 — A pure black worker, virgin or drone ; 



Menelfel ism. 



