Tm AMERICAN 



* * * 



ApfcULTURlST, 



A. Journal De\^oted. to F'ractical Beekeeping. 



VOL. X. 



MARCH, 1892 



No. 3. 



THE DESIRABILITY OF PRODUCING 

 A LARGER RACE OF BEES. 



Dear Mr. Alley : — In the Apicul- 

 TURiST for February, tSg i , Mr. Calvin 

 W. Smith of Wellesley Hills, Mass., made 

 a suggestion as to the desirability of pro- 

 ducing a larger race of bees, with the 

 idea that these larger bees would be able 

 to carry larger loads and perhaps fly 

 faster and farther and moreover having a 

 larger proboscis, would be able to gather 

 honey from the red clover and perhaps 

 some other flowers which are inacces- 

 sible to the bees which we novv have. 



In working for improvement in the 

 size of bees, I do not believe that much 

 would be gained by always using new 

 comb for the brood as suggested by Mr. 

 Smith. It does not seem to me that the 

 size of the cells has very much influence 

 upon the size of the bees raised in them. 

 Every^beekee])er has seen drones raised 

 in worker cells, and it would evidently 

 be possible to raise workers as large as 

 drones in the same cells. Improvement 

 in the size of bees must be gained in 

 the same way that we would proceed to 

 improve the size of any animal ; by care- 

 ful selection and breeding only from the 

 largest individuals and it is my belief that 

 if the size of bees should be perceptibly 

 increased by such means, tne bees 

 would instinctively increase the size of 

 the cells for brood. 'J'his belief is con- 

 firmed by the fact that a race ofbees has 

 been discovered in India of which race 

 the workers are as large as the drones of 

 our ordinary races, and it is found that 

 these bees build comb with very large 



worker cells, corresponding with the size 

 of the worker bees. My point is that 

 these bees are not large because they 

 were raised in large cells, but that the 

 cells are large because the bees which 

 built them are large. 



Now that this new race of bees has 

 been discovered it will hardly be neces- 

 sary to go through a long process of 

 selection to produce a large race in or- 

 der to find out whether the large bees 

 are more or less profitable than the or- 

 dinary bees. It may prove that a col- 

 ony consisting of a large number of small 

 bees will do more work than one with a 

 smaller number of large bees. Perhaps 

 the great activity of a small race like the 

 Funics, will more than offset the ability 

 of the larger bees to gather honey from 

 red clover. 1 do not think that it fol- 

 lows necessarily that large bees must be 

 less active than small ones. Dr. Miller 

 in criticising Mr. Smith's suggestion, 

 asks : "Does the bumble bee get around 

 more li\ely than the hive bee?" This 

 is hardly a conclusive argument for it is 

 very evident from the form of the bumble 

 bee that it is not built for speed. With 

 all animals, speed is not governed by 

 size alone. The Percheron horse is 

 certainly less fleet than the thoroughbred 

 but on the other hand, so is the Shet- 

 land pony. In the case of the bees it 

 is possible that by crossing the large and 

 small races, a new race may be produced 

 which shall combine the desirable points 

 of both. 



The United States Department of 

 Agriculture proposes to import some of 

 the giant bees from India and to do- 

 (33) 



