APRIL 1, 1914 



259 



ier. We can uol say whether he made suf- 

 ficient experiments alonii' this line to know, 

 or whether he simply held to this as a 

 theory. In our experience we can not recall 

 that we have ever noticed any difference. 



From a tlieoretical point of view a hardy, 

 long-lived queen ought to produce long- 

 lived bees. The longevity of a worker bee 

 depends upon the disposition of the colony, 

 to a great extent. The Avorkers of a ner- 

 vously disposed colony are almost always 

 shorter-lived. They may be out mornings 

 somewhat earlier, and possibly out later 

 evenings; yet ever_y touch of their hive 



brings them boiling out ; every ray of sun- 

 light seems to bring them forth in Cjuest of 

 stores. When it comes to wintering here in 

 the North, such bees won't winter as Avell as 

 the quieter bees, the main reason being that 

 they won't cluster as closely. They have a 

 sort of tendency to spread out over the 

 combs more than the quiet bees. It is our 

 candid opinion that the lack of longrevity in 

 some bees is due to their foolish habits I'atli- 

 er than to the lack of some inherited quality 

 from the queen, such as i)hysical hardi- 

 ness. 



Bellevue, Ohio. 



IMPROVEMENT BY SELECTION IN BREEDING IS GRADUAL 



BY B. M. SPENCER 



Many articles have been written on the 

 subject of the best bees, the rearing of 

 queens, etc., all of which lead up to the 

 same point — the production of the most 

 honey. We are all well aware that there 

 are certain races of bees that cap their 

 honey whiter — for example, the blacks ; oth- 

 ers that swarm considerably — the Carnio- 

 lans; a cross of the blacks Avith some other 

 race like the Italians makes a better bee 

 for the production of fancy comb honey, 

 while the Carniolan is a better bee for in- 

 crease on account of its tendency to swarm. 

 If the producers were all running for ex- 

 tracted honey there Avould be a far greater 

 gain in the purity of the bees in the coun- 

 try, owing to the fact that black stock Avould 

 be almost eliminated. A race of bees tliat 

 will gather more lioney is desired by the 

 extracted-honey producer; and thus a terri- 

 tory where extracted-honey production is 

 the rule is the best for rearing pure queens. 



As Doolittle says in his department in the 

 January 1st issue, there is no race that 

 excels the dark Italians for honey-gathering 

 qualities, and there is no question but that 

 these bees are the ones for the extracted- 

 honey producer. The question, then, is hoAV 

 to produce mothers from these queens which 

 the apiarist buys from the queen-breeder 

 who is breeding from the best Italian 

 stock. 



All honey-producers knoAV tliat there is a 

 great difference in the production of honey 

 from different colonies in the same yard 

 bred from the same mother, and this differ- 

 ence can not always be accounted for, even 

 by the most experienced apiarist or queen- 

 breeder. If it were possible to do so the 

 poor queens could be superseded at once, 

 and far more headway made, as in poultry- 

 raising, for instance. This brings us down 



to the proposition of breeding from queens 

 that produce workers that make a certain 

 average in a yard. 



Years ago I had a certain colony that 

 gathered seventeen ten-frame supers of nine 

 frames each of extracted honey, which su- 

 pers averaged about 30 pounds of honey 

 each. The average yield in this yard was 

 about 200 pounds per colony. Any breeder 

 knows that, if I had reared 100 queens 

 from the one queen whose bees made sucu 

 a record, it would have been doubtful 

 whether I could have secured one that would 

 have equaled the original colony in honey- 

 gathering. 



The most practical plan for the apiarist 

 is to use any one of the well-tried methods 

 of rearing queens, and select several queens 

 to rear from, whose bees show better honey- 

 gathering qualities than the average in the 

 yard, and also drones from colonies show- 

 ing better honey-gathering qualities, thus 

 making a small gain each year. Too little 

 attention is paid to the drones when breed- 

 ing is considered. I expect to see the day 

 Avhen drone brood or drones will be shipped 

 by queen-breeders to apiarists for the pur- 

 pose of providing superior drones for the 

 mating of their queens. 



HOW TO PREVENT THE LOSS OP YOUNG 

 QUEENS IN MATING. 



The mating of the queen after she is 

 liatched has been one of the hardest prob- 

 lems, for so many of the young queens are 

 lost. It is usually supposed that the miss- 

 ing queens are caught by birds, or that they 

 enter the wrong hives and are killed. A 

 year ago I made some careful experiments 

 to see Avhat proportion of queens became 

 laying when requeening by giving cells due 

 to hatch within 48 hours after the old 

 queens were remoA-ed. In each of 100 Im^esi 



