422 



AMERICAN BEE lOLIENAi. 



July 3 1902. 



honey perhaps for years. Therefore, it is the duty, really, 

 of ever^- one who sells honey, to find what kind of honey 

 the people want who are buying- it ; if you sell your custo- 

 mers honey that they don't like you lose them. 



" How can I keep bees from swarming- ?" 



Mr. Riker — The way I manage it is to give them lots of 

 room and comb to work with. 



Pres. York — Does it keep them from swarming ? 



Mr. Riker — Yes. . 



Mr. Dadant — All but about 5 or percent. 



Mr. Riker — Give them about 40 good combs to work on. 



Mr. Blunk — What time do you give those extra combs ? 



Mr. Riker — Just as soon as spring opens. 



Mr. Blunk — Set one hive on top of the other ? 



Mr. Riker — Yes, and put the bees in the very upper 

 story. 



Mr. Blunk — I have just found out how I cangoa-fishing 1 



Mr. Riker — I have 300 fixed up in that way, and never 

 have them swarm. 



(The End.' 



[Owing to the Briggs House people being compelled to 

 use the club-room for a guest chamber, with cots, the con- 

 vention had to break off the interesting discussion suddenly. 

 Mr. Blunk could have started ofl" on a fishing excursion that 

 very minute, had he so desired. He probably did " fish 

 around " for a bed at once. — Editor.] 



^ Contributed Articles. 



Influence of Worker-Bees on the Offspring. 



BY L. STACHEI.H.\l-SEN. 



On page 246, Adrian Getaz says that to one possessing 

 even an elementary knowledge of physiology it will appear 

 as an error, that the worker-bees have any influence on the 

 coming generation. His arguments are about as follows : 



1. The food in which young animals or plants develop 

 has no influence on the characteristics of the animal or 

 plant. 



This is generally true, but not always. If corn is 

 raised in a fluid containing hyposulphide of magnesia the 

 young plant will bear blossoms quite different from that of 

 corn. Frog-eggs develop into quite other frogs in water 

 containing salt, from Sweetwater. In the animal kingdom 

 we have another example in our bees. An impregnated 

 egg can develop into a queen or into a worker-bee, and 

 which one will develop is decided by the nourishment of the 

 larva. We know a worker-bee is not simply an undeveloped 

 or crippled queen, as in the worker-bee the digestive organs 

 are fully developed, which are missing or not fully developed 

 in the queen : the same is true with other organs. - But this 

 is not the most important point in our question. 



2. He thinks that queens, drones and larv;t are fed by 

 worker-bees, and this food is only a secretion of glands, 

 consequently can not transmit more qualities than the milk 

 of the wet-nurse to the baby — that is, nothing at all. 



It is a mistake that the food given to the queen and 

 young larva; is a secretion of glands simply. Certainly the 

 eggs are produced out of the blood circulating in the body 

 of the queen ; but the production of this blood is something 

 quite particular to bees. How the food in the bee-body is 

 digested, and how the blood is formed, it seems Mr. Getaz 

 does not know — only so much, that from the food the chyle 

 is prepared in the true stomach, and for assimilation this 

 chyle simply passes the wall of the stomach and is blood 

 then, without being changed in any way. Now, in the 

 queen all the organs for digestion are either entirely miss- 

 ing or rudimentary, only in such a degree that the queen 

 can't digest at all — and can't renew her own blood ; never- 

 theless, for laying so many eggs as she does, she needs an 

 enormous quantity of new blood. This is possible only be- 

 cause a number of worker-bees prepare this chyle, feed it to 

 the queen, and it passes the wall of her stomach. So we 

 can truly say that the digestive and blood-forming organs 

 of the queen are in the bodies of the worker-bees. 



Now, we have to consider a deciding point. Except 

 with the lowest organism, life isconnected with cells, which 



grow and multiply by splitting. Where we find such cells 

 we have life. In the intima of the chyle-stomach are a 

 great number of such cells which split, and a part of them 

 is mixed with the chyle in the stomach. The same cells we 

 find in the blood of the bees, and they represent the blood- 

 globules of higher animals. Consequently the chyle fed by 

 worker-bees to the queen is not a simple food, or a secretion 

 of glands, but an organic, living part of the worker-bees, 

 and identical with the blood. It is the same as if the blood 

 from the veins of one man would be pumped over into the 

 veins of another man. Mainly this particular quality of 

 the bees forces us to consider the whole colony as a unit 

 organism, while the single bee is onh' a part of this organ- 

 ism. The worker-bees and the queen belong to an indi- 

 vidual organism in the same sense as the sexual organs, 

 digestive and other organs, belong to one and the same 

 mammalia. The fact that two important functions of life 

 are separated in two separated bodies as yet hindered this 

 conception, till we found the way in which connection is 

 secured. 



For this conception it is not more difficult to explain 

 how worker-bees can transmit through egg or sperm-cell, 

 or through both, their qualities to the young bees, as it is 

 to explain how the quality of the brain or the color of hair 

 of men is transmitted from parents to children and grand- 

 children. Neither the brain nor the hair produces some- 

 thing like an egg or a sperm-cell (as Mr. Getaz erroneously 

 says is necessary), but the connection is secured by the 

 blood, especially by the blood-globules, and we do not know 

 as yet how the qualities of these organs are transmitted to 

 the sperm or germ-cell and through them to the offspring. 

 With bees it is quite the same. 



We may say what -we please, the fact that queens and 

 drones never gather honey, never build combs, never feed 

 larva?, etc., forces us to suppose an influence of the worker- 

 bees on the egg or sperm-cell, or on both. From these cells 

 nothing else can develop but something very similar to the 

 ancestors. The fact that from an unimpregnated egg a 

 male bee, and a male bee only, can develop, is no proof 

 against this. The drone has no father, but he has a grand- 

 father. Do you see ? 



Mr. Getaz tries to explain the different characteristics 

 of bees by saying they follow the example of other bees. 

 If you take a comb of capped brood and set it in a nursery, 

 and let the bees gnaw out there, these bees have never seen 

 any other bee, nevertheless they will nurse given brood, 

 rear queens, build combs, will afterwards gather pollen 

 and honey, etc., and will occasionally sting you just like 

 other bees in your apiary. How could this be possible if 

 these instincts should not be transmitted to them ? All this 

 can not be explained if we do not suppose an influence of 

 the worker-bees ? 



As I said above, from an impregnated egg a queen or a 

 worker-bee can develop according to the nourishment given 

 to the larva. This does not prove that by this food any 

 quality of the worker-bees is transmitted to the larva ; to 

 the contrary, I am like Mr. Getaz, of the opinion that this 

 is very improbable. The power to develop into a queen, 

 a worker bee, or into a drone, must be inherited in the egg. 

 If the egg is impregnated the power for development into a 

 drone is getting dormant, but is still present and latent. 

 The environment of the larva decides whether the develop- 

 ment takes place in the direction of a queen or a worker- 

 bee. This can be proven to a certain degree by the bees, 

 which are between queen and worker, not only in size but 

 in consideration of the inner organs, too. They will appear 

 when a larva a short time before the cell is capped is 

 selected by the bees to rear a queen. The digestive organs 

 have already commenced to develop, and this can not be 

 stopped any more ; the ovaries develop better than in 

 worker-bees, but not quite as well as in good queens. This 

 proves that the environment of the embryo (the larva can 

 be compared with the embryo of higher animals) has some 

 influence on the development, but that hereby any quality 

 can be transmitted is doubtful, if not impossible. 



We see that a general knowledge of physiology is not 

 sufficient to decide such questions —a special knowledge of 

 the ph3'siology of the honey-bee, too, is necessary. In all 

 these questions we should not simply condemn e.v iii//ied>a 

 another man's opinion. With all our knowledge a new dis- 

 covery may change that — prove what we believed to be cor- 

 rect to be an error. Mr. Getaz 's opinion was generally 

 accepted as correct until about 20 years ago, when the 

 above-mentioned particular qualities of the honey-bees 

 were discovered. Bexar Co., Tex. 



