28 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



January, 1917 



heredity. In common parlance we call it 

 a freak of nature. For instance, the 

 phenomenal Root queen would represent a 

 mutation — an upward bound. And could 

 the mating of her offspring have been eon- 

 trolled, she might have proved the parent 

 of a transcendent strain. The Concord 

 grape was a mutation from the wild grape. 



It will be seen, therefore, that the bee- 

 keeper must ever be alert to detect these 

 desirable variations, and not waste time up- 

 on stocks whose characteristics are acquired. 

 The latter lead us only into blind alleys. 

 For instance, you say gentleness is an es- 

 sential. Colony No. 1 is gentle; therefore, 

 breed from that queen. But why is colony 

 No. 1 gentle ? Perhaps because said colony 

 is rendered docile by frequent contact with 

 people. Queens from that colony may de- 

 velop vicious bees. The characteristic was 

 acquired — not inherent. For instance, 

 again : Colony No. 2 has produced a tre- 

 mendous honey crop ; therefore breed from 

 that queen. But why the big crop? Per- 

 haps because the queen was a vigorous 

 layer. But why? Pei'haps because she 

 was well reared. Her cell was built by a 

 roaring colony in the swarming season. 

 If the vigor her colony displays is due to 

 the numerical abundance of bees she pro- 

 duces, and not to the inherent quality of 

 the individual bee, her daughters may be 

 doomed to mediocrity. 



The other day I read an article about a 

 beginner who had bought several Italian 

 queens and a swarm of black bees. The 

 blacks produced a bigger surplus; there- 

 fore he favored the blacks. 



But why did the black colony transcend? 

 Simply because, for some reason, the 

 black queen had a better individual life 

 history. The Italians, while possessing a 

 far better racial history, were probably not 

 so well nourished as queen-cells, or were 

 growing old. But given an equal chance 

 in the second generation, the inherent vigor 

 of the Italians would predominate, and the 

 blacks would be left in iimbo. 



Right here is a fine point to be considered 

 in the production of queens. There are two 

 kinds of people who purchase queens: 

 Those who buy for breeding, and those who 

 buy yearly for honey-gathering. A poor 

 layer may be highly profitable to the breed- 

 er, provided she is not genetically so. Her 

 lack of fecundity may liave been brought 

 about by old age, accident, or even because 

 of poor nutrition in her larval stages. But 

 these are soma-plasm modifications. Her 

 well-bred daughters will immediately " re- 

 vert " to the high ty]ie of her ancestral line. 

 Really, I do not believe the prolificness of 



an individual mother ought to be so loudly 

 proclaimed as a breeding asset — only so, 

 if that prolificness be congenital. Give 

 me a poor layer from a vigorous honey- 

 producing strain, and let her i^overty of 

 eggs be due to her own improper larval 

 nourishment, and I am sure I could pro- 

 duce from that queen daughtere of maxi- 

 mum prolificness. In breeding it is the 

 racial line that counts. So much from the 

 breeder's standpoint. But the honey-pro- 

 ducer also buys queens; and let us say that 

 he buys absolutely all his queens, rearing 

 none. Then the vital qu&stion with him is 

 not the racial but the life history of the 

 queen. Of course, if both are combined 

 so much the better. But of the two, the 

 queen's life liistory is the predominant 

 requisite. A queen may be of the finest 

 strain; but if she is old, if she has a leg- 

 injured, if she emerged from an improperly 

 nourished cell, good by honey ! 



In other words, if I am a honey-pro- 

 ducer I will sacrifice racial vigor to indi- 

 vidual vigor. I can do better with a well- 

 reared queen from poor stock than with a 

 l^oorly reared queen from fancy stock. If, 

 on the other hand, I am a breeder, I will 

 sacrifice individual vigor to racial vigor. 

 I can do better with a poorly reared queen 

 from fancy stock than with a well-reared 

 queen from poor stock. Here I am after 

 germ plasm — not soma plasm. 



Ignorance of these principles often leads 

 to the most ludicrous conclusions. For in- 

 stance, years ago, while I was yet in the 

 West Indies, there was much controversy 

 about clipping queens' wings. Some one even 

 declared certain of his bees were hatching 

 wingless because his queens for generations 

 had been clipped ! Such a man had evi- 

 dently forgotten that horses' tails have been 

 cut short from the time of Pharaoh — and 

 dogs' also. Yet hounds and horses are 

 still born with normal tails. 



The same applies to the fiction of 

 " Northern-bred Queens." A white man 

 in Africa is a wlute man. It will require 

 aeons to make his burnt skin in the slightest 

 degree hereditary. A standard Doolittle 

 queen reared in Florida is as good as a 

 standard Doolittle queen reared at the 

 North Pole. 



Lebanon, Ohio, Sept. 26. 



[Mr. Phillips, as manj' of our readers 

 know, while not related in any way to Dr. 

 E. F. Phillips, has been quite prominent as 

 a beekeeper and queen-breeder. Born in 

 Jamaica, he was a successful beekeeper in 

 that country, and after coming to the 

 United States was for several years head 

 queen-breeder for the A. I. Root Co. — Ed.] 



