1921 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



227 



tility in certain queenbees wl-.i'.'h hiiVL' 



become of unusual value as broeders. 



Inheritance of Disease 



Disease is an abnormal process ex- 

 hibited in some part of the body and 

 dependent for its initial impetus upon 

 some external cause. Obviously, if 

 we accept such a definition as this, 

 there cannot be such a thing as the 

 inheritance of disease. It has been 

 demonstrated, however, that certain 

 conditions in the body which predis- 

 pose it to disease are inhei-ited. The 

 fact that a disease may reappear in 

 successive generations does not con- 

 stitute inheritance, since successive 

 generation may often be subjected 

 to the same conditions of life which 

 favor predisposition to the disease, 

 and the disease will, therefore, 

 appear as often as the proper external 

 stimulus is applied. 



Fortunately, it appears that in gen- 

 eral, the normal state of health is the 

 dominant condition and that predispo- 

 sitions are dependent for the most 

 part upon the action of recessive fac- 

 tors. The most striking examples of 

 heredity taints occur in the human 

 race and it is a matter of grave con- 

 cern that fully 30 per cent of the 

 population of the earth should be bur- 

 dened with some physical defect in- 

 herited from ancesti-y. The animal 

 breeder does not propagate his defec- 

 tives. He rigidly culls them out, and 

 the few defectives which do occur 

 from generation to generation are im- 

 mediately condemned, as far as breed- 

 ing purposes are concerned. We 

 should follow this rule persistently, 

 and with the greatest care, in queen 

 breeding. 



Immunity to Disease 



As far as bees are concerned, im- 

 munity to disease is a matter of pro- 

 ducing queens of such perfect phys- 

 ical development that they are able to 

 produce practically one hundred per 

 cent perfect workers which will give 

 lai-vae adequate attention and food, 

 producing in them a high degree of 

 resistance to disease. 



Use of a Pedigree System 



The only rational method of deter- 

 mining which individuals are best for 

 breeders is one in which a careful rec- 

 ord is kept of the ancestry for at 

 least four generations, and of the be- 

 havior of the individual queen for at 

 least two generations. It is not neces- 

 sary to go back of the fourth genera- 

 tion, since in the fifth generation 

 there would be thirty ancestors to re- 

 cord, and beyond this it would be an 

 endless task with no practical benefit. 

 The most important part of the rec- 

 oi-d is the behavior of the individual 

 breeding queen. In order that we 

 may have such a pedigree system es- 

 tablished, the author proposes the fol- 

 lowing, which has been in use in his 

 own breeding yard for the pa.st n/e 

 years, and has been practical and of 

 value 



First — The selection of all bi-eeding 

 queens upon a basis of constitutional 

 vigor and vitality, measured by p ?r- 

 formance in egg-laying and the ler.uth 

 of breeding season, the number of full 

 frames of worker brood, in a year, to 

 be the test of fecundity. 



Second — The jjerformance of the 

 workei's as shown by their record in 

 honey production. 



Third — Selection of queens whose 

 progeny have never shown a disposi- 

 tion to disease of any kind. 



Fourth — The selection of drones 

 for mating from queens which show 

 as good a record as the breeding 

 queens, and preferably from a dif- 

 ferent strain of bees. 



Fifth — The use of a pedigree by 

 which it will be possible for the 

 breeder to tell the parentage, for four 

 generations at least, of any breeding 

 queen. 



In the establishment of such a sys- 

 tem, it is first necessary to discover 

 the queens which have the quality de- 

 sired, and the best way of doing this 

 is by selection. The breeder should 

 first secure tested queens from as 

 large a number of proved strains as 

 possible and from these queens, and 

 their daughters, he may select for his 

 own stock. The author has been us- 

 ing this system and the results have 

 been surprising in many ways, disap- 

 pointing in some, perhaps, but finally 

 resulting in a few strains of Italians 

 which have given a good account of 

 themselves. From these strains, the 

 author proposes to select tested 

 queens and breeders, and to give them 

 as wide a distribution as possible, in 

 order that they may be tried out un- 

 der varied conditions. Record cards 

 will be furnished with each queen, for 

 a record of her performance, and this 

 card is to be returned so that we may 

 have a check on our breeding stock. 

 We will thus be able to eliminate 

 queens which are not strictly up to 

 standard. 



California. 



CONTRADICTIONS 



By Jess Dalton 



A common method of requeening 

 is to kill the old queen and give a ripe 

 cell. I have never had uniform success 

 by this method, often losing three- 

 fourths of the cells introduced. No 

 matter whether I waited two minutes 

 or two days before giving the cells. 

 Last summer in raising queens and 

 making increase, I often had a sur- 

 plus of cells. To use these cells I often 

 took three frames of brdod and 

 placed them in a nucleus box, insert- 

 ed a cell between them, shook a few 

 pounds of bees into it, closed the box 

 and placed on a stand. I iosl practi- 

 cally none of these cells. 



I ■ have practiced running virgin 

 queens in with smioke for years with 

 fair success. Last summer I had 18 

 small colonies to requeen. Just 18 

 virgin queens were saved, and choos- 

 ing favorable conditions I smoked 

 them in. I had grown so confident of 

 success that no provision was made 

 for failure. I never had such a fail- 

 ure, nor have I any clue as to the 

 cause. I lost 17 of the 18. 



I have had two queens in one hive 

 time and again under the supersed- 

 ure impulse. I have also had a few 

 mate from an upper story over an ex- 

 cluder accidentally, with a laying 

 queen below. Although I have tried 



to repeat the same condition, I have 

 never been successful — not Once. 

 To introduce a laying queen I 

 placed her with the cage open be- 

 tween two frames of emerging Lrood, 

 from which all bees had been 

 brushed. These frames are placed in 

 a super with a newspaper between it 

 and the colony below. This greatly 

 reduces the loss. 



There are a lot of things very hard 

 to account for. There are more con- 

 tradictions in the bee business than 

 in any other with which I ai.i ac- 

 quainted. 



Louisiana. 



CARE OF MAILED QUEENS 



It often happens that a beekeeper 

 receives a few queens from the 

 breeder and cannot use them at once. 

 Perhaps the weather is bad and he is 

 unable to vvnork in his apiary, or he 

 fails to find promptly the old queens 

 which he desires to replace. In order 

 to preserve, in the best possible shape, 

 the queens which have been received, 

 they should be kept in a dark, quiet 

 place, of even temperature. If there 

 are several queens and the beekeeper 

 uses only a few at a time, each cage 

 should be looked over carefully and 

 the one which appears to be the least 

 lively should be used first. Very 

 often the cages contain a dead bee 

 or two, and these should by all means 

 be used as promptly as possible. 



Queens, if packed properly with the 

 right kind of sugar candy, live sev- 

 eral days in quiet confinement. The 

 quieter they are kept, the less they 

 are handled, the longer they will live: 

 if handled in daylight they attempt to 

 get out of the cage, and worry. 



Sometimes the candy does not have 

 sufficient moisture, and it is well to 

 put a drop or two of water lO'U each 

 cage. It is not because the bees need 

 water, as they can go a long time 

 without it, but if the candy is hard, 

 it helps them to soften it. 



Keeping caged queens right over 

 brood-combs in a qu'cenright or 

 queenless colony is practiced also, but 

 one must be sure that the bees of the 

 hive cannot get to the candy of the 

 cage. The bees of a hive will feed 

 any nirmber of queens, in cages, even 

 if they have one of their own, but 

 they will allow the caged workers to 

 starve. 



In any case, queens should be used 

 as promptly as possible after being 

 received, and instructions for intro- 

 ducing must be very carefully fol- 

 lowed. If introduced during a dearth 

 of honey, late in the evening is the 

 best time to put the queen in. The 

 old queen may be killed at any time 

 during the day. or she may be caged 

 and the new queen introduced in her 

 place after everything is settled and 

 robbers have ceased to roam about. 

 The queen is then introduced with 

 much less danger of the bees taking a 

 dislike to her than if she is put in 

 while the colony is still excited. 



As a matter of course, if queens 

 die while held in this way, the ship- 

 per is not responsible. Breeders guar- 

 antee safe arrival and should not be 



