1905 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



709 



And out in the garden among the flowers 

 and other plants the same variations are 

 seen. These differences of the races and 

 varieties did not always exist; with wild an- 

 imals and reptiles we do not find them to 

 the same degree; they have been produced 

 by man through selection in breeding. 



Through selection in breeding, man has 

 produced such animals as he needs — light 

 fast horses for the saddle, heavy ones for 

 drawing freight- wagons; cows which far ex- 

 ceed in yield of milk their ancestors, sheep 

 with the finest wool for the manufacture of 

 cloth, and sheep which give a less quantity 

 of wool but a correspondingly greater yield 

 of meat for the butcher, etc. 



By the side of these breeds for practical 

 purposes there have been produced through 

 selection by man races whose usefulness is 

 very small, but which, by reason of their 

 abnormity or beauty, etc., find fanciers; 

 such are the so-called fancy breeds— ponies, 

 bantams, dwarfed dogs, peafowls, peafowl 

 pigeons, etc. Such extremes as man can 

 breed, as are shown by our domestic bees, 

 nature does not produce. Milch cows with 

 such large heavy udders would, in a wild 

 state, soon fall a prey to bears and wolves; 

 such a breed would, therefore, not preserve 

 itself. And how could such dwarfed dogs as 

 we possess secure food in the wild condi- 

 tion? 



What I wish to show by all this is that, 

 through selection in the breeding of animals, 

 man can change very materially every mem- 

 ber, and thus suitably mold the animals to 

 his purposes and to his aims in breeding. 

 Thus Darwin said: "State a quality which 

 you desire, and I will breed it in the animal 

 in question. That certain limits exist in 

 this connection is to be understood." 



For centuries bees have been domestic an- 

 imals, but up to recent times there has been 

 followed by man no definite system of selec- 

 tion in their breeding. Man has taken the 

 bee always just as it came from the hand of 

 nature. Indeed, in recent times he has even 

 hindered nature in bringing about, by means 

 of natural selection, the adaptation of the 

 race of bees to their changed conditions. I 

 should like, first of all, to show this here. 

 In our forests the soft-wood trees yielding 

 honey (willow, alders, lindens) are being cut 

 away, and the heath plains are being plant- 

 ed to trees. In the fields, in the place of 

 honey-producing crimson, white, and espar- 

 cet clover, there is continually appearing 

 the red clover from which bees get honey 

 only under especially favorable circum- 

 stances, thus from year to year the harvest 

 becomes less. 



But among bees there are undoubtedly 

 strains which, under these unfavorable con- 

 ditions, are better honey-producers than 

 others. Were nature to rule undisturbed, 

 then all of those strains would be destroyed, 

 which from any cause whatever were not 

 able, under these unfavorable conditions, to 

 collect the necessary surplus, and only those 

 would remain which could get together for 

 themselves the needed stores. Thus nature 



would plainly and surely practice selection 

 in breeding. But along comes the bee-keep- 

 er and feeds the colonies which are too light 

 in the autumn, and thus prevents nature 

 from adapting through natural selection 

 our bees to the changed conditions of pas- 

 turage. Thus from being a useful race 

 which brings in something, our bees must be 

 changed more and more into a fancy race 

 which must be supported by the bee-keeper. 



In a similarly thoughtless manner straw- 

 hive bee-keeping has been followed for cen- 

 turies. In the autumn all hives which had 

 not swarmed, and were thus the heaviest in 

 honey, were sulphured. In this way our 

 heath bee, this swarmer and waster of hon- 

 ey, the worst of all races of bees, has been 

 produced. 



These facts, which are wholly unassaila- 

 ble, have pushed forward in my mind the 

 question whether and how this matter might 

 be helped. 



I have already mentioned that, with us, 

 in place of the rich honey-producing crim- 

 son, white, and esparcet clovers, red clover 

 is continually appearing, in which the nec- 

 tar remains so deep down that the bees are 

 able only under especially favorable condi- 

 tions to suck up a portion of the rich trea- 

 sures. There are only two ways possible — 

 either we must raise red clover with shorter 

 corolla-tubes, or bees with longer tongues. 

 We can, however, follow both ways. 



When we consider what plant-breeders 

 have done — how they have been able to 

 change materially all the parts of a plant, 

 we are no longer, even for a moment, in 

 doubt as to their ability to breed with cer- 

 tainty a red clover which shall meet our re- 

 quirements. But these would help us less 

 than would the long-tongued bees — first, be- 

 cause such a clover would be dearer than the 

 common clover; second, it would be just as 

 difficult, or even more difficult, to continue 

 to cultivate this clover in its purity than it 

 would a long-tongued race of bees; third, 

 bee-keepers, who usually do not possess 

 much land, would be dependent upon the 

 good will of the farmers; and, fourth, long- 

 tongued bees would not only be able to visit 

 the red clover but also many other plants 

 with deep-located nectaries. 



Therefore the second way would surely be 

 the better. We are not at all prevented, 

 however, from doing both ways, and in order 

 to prove that I do not wish to hinder, but, 

 on the other hand, to further the matter, I 

 herewith offer a prizeof one thousand marks 

 for the breeding of a variety of red clover 

 which will be visited by honey-bees. The 

 exact conditions of this offer I will make 

 known in my Neue Bienenzeitung. 



If, then, I held the breeding of long- 

 tongued bees as a thing particularly worthy 

 of being undertaken, then I must, above all 

 things, seek for bees which nature had en- 

 dowed with longer tongues than others, for 

 it has always been clear to me that I could 

 not succeed in getting long-tongued bees by 

 merely letting the bees sip up honey through 

 a wire cloth and thus oblige them to stretch 



