568 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



Sept. 4, 1902. 



little about law or for others. Several times I have noticed 

 the indifference of some good bee-keepers about diseases of 

 bees, saying their bees and that part of the country had 

 nothing of the kind ; but when I showed them pictures I 

 took onl)' a few miles from them — of apiaries once profit- 

 able, 200 colonies reduced to S, and another of 90 reduced to 

 1, and also diseased combs lying around on the grass — how 

 anxious they were then to know what the law was, and 

 whether the disease is endangering their bees. 



Had it not been for importing foul brood into Wiscon- 

 sin from other States. I could have had our State free of 

 the trouble some time ago. 



Each State can have just such laws on diseases of bees 

 as its bee-keepers want, and will have them as soon as its 

 bee-keepers will together ask for the same. 



Xow, the United States Census Report on bee-keeping 

 in United States is to be had. I know the above to be true. 

 I long for the day when every State will have legislation 

 on diseases of bees, and no more importing of the same 

 from other countries, or from one State to another. Foul 

 brood and other diseases are not half as hard to handle as 

 the behind-the-times bee-keeper. 



Every State should have an experiment apiary con- 

 ducted by a bee-keeper, said bee-keeper to be chosen by its 

 State bee-keepers' association, and to conduct such experi- 

 mental work as directed by said association. I hope to see 

 such a day. Then bee-keeping will advance and be of great 

 value. Grant Co., Wis. 



Evolution in Bees—" Nature and Nurture." 



BY PKOK. A. J. COOK. 



I read with great pleasure the interesting article from 

 Mr. L. Stachelhausen, on page 422. I always do read his 

 articles with great intei'est. He knows a whole lot, and I 

 usually find myself in hearty accord with his pen-strokes. 



This matter of development in the bees has puzzled 

 many abler than Mr. Stachelhausen or I. Even the great 

 Darwin was staggered to harmonize fully his great discovery 

 with our bees. Yet to me there seems no very great puzzle, 

 nor any serious conflict with the laws of breeding 'or of 

 transmission. Let us see : 



In all organisms parents, either through some inherent 

 tendency, as taught by Darwin, or more probably influenced 

 by environment, are ever producing offspring varj'ingfrom 

 each other, which shows that it is more from " nurture than 

 Nature." Thus while all parents tend surely to transmit 

 their own peculiarities to their progeny — that is, all oft- 

 spring tend surely to inherit the peculiarities — there is al- 

 ways as surely a like tendency to variation. And it is these 

 two tendencies, coupled with " survival of the fittest," that 

 has guided and controlled in all the developmental life-his- 

 tory of the World's evolution. 



Let me make the case or example concrete. A man 

 sires children. He gives to them strong characteristics, to 

 all of them. One is to transmit to his possible children 

 these same prominent traits. Let us suppose this is a very 

 united family, and always works together for the common 

 good — like the apostles of old, "have all things in com- 

 mon." Suppose there are two children. One marries and 

 is happy in a family, which he is able to surround with the 

 best environment, and is wise to give or withhold as the 

 best needs of his children suggest. The other does not 

 marry, is not encumbered with family cares, and thus 

 shares the productive resources of his fruitful labors with 

 his less thrifty but more fortunate brother. Who can surely 

 say but that this is not better for the world, in scattering 

 more broadly the grand, sterling characteristics of this 

 family than though both had offspring? A good motto 

 for college classes is, " Not how much, but how well." Here 

 the bachelor brother supplies means for the best possible 

 nurture that the benedict has leisure and opportunity to give 

 it. More children less well equipped would surely not be a 

 richer gift to the world. One unique, like a Gladstone, a 

 Beecher, or a Washington, is worth scores of those who 

 never touch their kind to bless and help. If, as I fear, the 

 neglect of busy fathers sends fine, promising boys to the 

 slums, then surely means to banish this neglect would be 

 beneficent. 



Could we say that the bachelor brother did nothing to 

 elevate the future in his failure to leave children ? Did he 

 not help to a development which carried grandly his own 

 very characteristics also, rich in the blood of his brother. 

 into the life and work of the world ? To doubt this is to 

 doubt the grand work of nurture in the world's progression. 



If, as seems likely, the whole work of sex-determination is 

 dependent upon nourishment, who shall say that such divi- 

 sion of labor as suggested here is not most influential in 

 organic evolution ? 



If division of labor is the strongest factor in economic 

 advancement, why, then, may not such division of labor as 

 just suggested prove most potential in the best and most 

 rapid development ? 



Do not all see at once the application of this example 

 to our bees ? Here, through varying the food, the bees 

 develop a numerous " bachelor class " — the workers — which 

 may never transmit their characteristics — for they shall 

 never know descendants ; but they may store such rich har- 

 vests of the best food, may prepare a food regimen so super- 

 excellent that their own mother and fertile sisters shall the 

 better transmit surely and generously all the good qualities 

 which they bear and share. This mother-queen had the 

 power to transmit them, else they would not possess them. 

 She will hand her peculiarities as surely to her fertile 

 daughters, and more richly because of their exceptional 

 ministries. 



Again, suppose, because of an exceptional environment, 

 she produces workers of exceptional excellence. The ex- 

 ceptional environment may have come through better care 

 and attention from her own sterile daughters. She will 

 not only produce there excellent workers, but she will give 

 to their fertile sisters, her own power — perhaps magnified — 

 to produce also improved workers. 



Thus the fact of sterile females is no bar to the work of 

 development through " natural selection " — nay, may be its 

 best aid. The fact is that differentiation has nowhere been 

 so varied and marked, both anatomically and pysiologically 

 as in the honey-bees, and no less wonderful work of the 

 queen in laying nearly double her own weight of eggs each 

 day. To appreciate this latter we have only to fancy a 

 Brahma hen laying some IS pounds of eggs a day, or a Jer- 

 sey cow producing milk that would furnish us say 1,500 

 pounds of the best Jersey butter. 



Los Angeles Co., Calif. 



The Causes of Swarming— Its Prevention. 



BY C. P. DADANT. 



I notice the quotation, on page 499, of Dr. Miller's state- 

 ment in regard to the prevention of swarming. I wish to 

 make some remarks about it, and as the paragraph I wish 

 to quote is quite short, it is perhaps as well to repeat it here. 

 Dr. Miller says : 



" One way to prevent swarming is to get the bees to rear a j'oung 

 queen about swarming-time. Giving a young queen reared elsewhere 

 won't answer. 1 had a swarm issue with a young queen that I had 

 given not a week before, she having just begun to lay, but when a 

 colony has itself reared a young queen, and that queen has begun to 

 lay, I never knew or heard of such a colony swarming till the next 

 year, tiravenhorst gave this as reliable without being able to explain 

 why the young cjueen must be reared in the hive itself.'' 



My experience tallies exactly with that of Dr. Miller, 

 but the difficulty is to rear a young queen in a colony just 

 at swarming-time, and get her to lay before the bees swarm. 

 My experience is that when a populous colony is made to 

 rear queens during the swarming season it will swarm with 

 the first queen hatched, more readily than if it had not been 

 caused to rear queens at all. If, however, the first queen 

 can be brought to lay, the other queen-cells have all been de- 

 stroyed, the swarming fever is over, and the interruption 

 in the laying between the taking away of the old queen and 

 the laying of the new one — making a period of some- 20 to 

 25 days — is sufficient to deter the bees from swarming. 

 After the young queen has begun to lay, the season is al- 

 ready far advanced. But a young queen has this particular- 

 ity : If she is healthy, she lays drone-eggs very sparingly. 

 My father held that a queen preferred laying worker-eggs 

 whenever she was not tired by incessant laying, and accord- 

 ing to his views the young queen avoids laying in drone- 

 cells simply because she feels vigorous. The drones when 

 numerous are a great incentive to swarming. I might say, 

 perhaps, that they are the greatest incentive of all when 

 circumstances are favorable. So if the hive has few 

 drones the swarming will be less frequent. Open a 

 hive that has just swarmed, and in nine cases out of ten, 

 you will find a great many drones. They are noisy, they are 

 in the way, they make the workers more or less uncomfort- 

 able, hence the swarming. 



When we give the bees a young queen just at the time 



