1898 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



•. 117 



Report of the Northwesteru Bee-Keepers' Cou- 



ventioa, Held in Chicago, Nov. 10 and 



11, 1897. 



REPORTED BY A SPECIAL BEE JOURNAI.^REPORTER. 



(ContlDued from page 102.) 

 FIRST DAY— Evening Session. 



CLIPPING WINGS OF VIRGIN QUEENS. 



" Is it advisable to clip the winfts of virgin queens ?" ' 



Mr. Wheeler — I have had it tried on one virgin queen, 

 and knovf of the wings of another being dipt ; results not 

 favorable. 



Mr. Baldridge — Mr. Aspinwall, of Michigan, is in the 

 habit of clipping the wings of virgin queens an eighth of an 

 Inch, or about a sixteenth, so they well not fly very far from 

 home for the purpose of mating, and he has succeeded in get- 

 ting them mated In a wa'y that he would not have otherwise 

 done. 



Dr. Besse — I askt that question. I also recollect reading 

 that Mr. Aspinwall recommended clipping. I should like to 

 keep my queens pure. I should advise some of these young 

 men to experiment in It. I believe in clipping old queen's 

 wings to keep them from going very far when they swarm. 



Pres. Miller — I do consider it as a thing we need to watch 

 very closely. As has been said, an eighth of an inch has been 

 reported as having been taken oflT ; this was reported as an 

 exceptional case, but it resulted favorably, and Mr. Aspinwall 

 reports that the number of mijmated queens with the wings 

 dipt Is not more than one-third of those that were left un- 

 clipt, so that those who have pure stock of their own and want 

 to refrain from mixing them with other stock, will probably 

 find a very great advantage in practicing that very thing. 



Mr. Baxter — That will do for those who produce comb 

 honey, but not extracted, for there is no trouble, and you 

 ought not to be bothered with any swarming at all. 



Pres. Miller — That does not have any reference to swarm- 

 ing, because you will have to have your queens whether they 

 swarm or not; your queens will be replaced perhaps once in 

 three or four years anyhow. Of course, there will be some 

 trouble, but you have to attend to it if you consider the matter 

 of controlling fertilization of sul'ficient importance for you to 

 take the trouble. 



Mr. Baxter — Some one said that he dipt the old queen's 

 wings to prevent her from flying very far when the bees 

 swarmed. 



Pres. Miller — That is another question altogether ; this is 

 with reference to clipping virgin queens. 



Mr. Wheeler — Would that be practical with you when you 

 were producing your honey ? Could you practice anything of 

 that kind. 



Pres. Miller — 1 will answer that for myself, that it would 

 be quite a little trouble for me, but if it made enough differ- 

 ence in the result I would do it, because every one of my 

 ■queens I know about, and see the virgin queens before they 

 are laying ; there will be trouble, of course; the only ques- 

 tion is, will It pay for the trouble ? 



IN-BREEDING FOB TEN GENERATIONS. 



"Supposing a pure Italian queen is mated with a pure 

 black drone, and In-breeding practiced for 10 generations, 

 what will the stock be ?" 



Pres. Miller — Will it be Italian stock, or black stock, or 

 what will It be? 



Mr. Green — I suppose the one who askt the question re- 

 ferred to the belief that some hold and have advocated that 

 such bees would incline toward yellow stock, and in time be- 

 come yellow bees ; but in my experience I should say not. I 

 should think they would remain hybrids. They might be very 

 dark yellow, possibly ; they would be more even than the first 

 cross. 



Pres. Miller — The question is not as to the appearance of 

 bees, but as to the amount of Italian blood in the stock. 

 — Mr. Green — There should not be any change. 



Dr. Besse — It would be impossible to have them mated 



that way with the amount of Italian-blacks in the coontry 

 now. 



Pres. Miller — This is a fair question to ask. You know 

 this, that in some cases crosses are considered valuable ; there 

 are some who think very highly of crosses, and some who 

 want pure-blood Italian-blacks. Now the question is. What 

 will your stock be ? In that case, what proportion of Italian 

 blood and black blood will you have ? 



Mr. Schaper — If the drone from the Italian queen fertilizes 

 the next generation, I should think it would cause the third 

 generation to be three-fourths Italian; of course, in breeding 

 you should consider that the drone from the same colony 

 would fertilize the young queen that would be reared from the 

 parent colony. Would that not have a tendency to produce 

 thre'i-fourths blood ? 



Pres. Miller — It would. 



Mr. Schaper — And would remain the same, three-fourths 

 blood all the way through; the third y?ar the drone progeny 

 would not be Italian, it would be three-fourths, so would be 

 the queen. 



Mr. Green — It might work either way. 



Mr. Kartch — It seems to me the first cross will produce 

 half-breeds, of course, and if you follow up mating with black 

 drones, you will have the queens blacker all the time, and by 

 the time 10 years expire you will have a perfect black bee; 

 you have very little Italian left at the end of 10 years. 



Mr. Schaper — By having the first queen full-blood Italian, 

 and mated with a black drone, the next year if the swarm 

 issued and the young queens reared, the queen will be half 

 blood, the drone will, as is generally supposed, be full-blood 

 from that colony, consequently the third generation will be 

 three-fourths, and if they are inbred from the same colony 

 for 10 years, they will remain about the same as they were 

 the third generation. 



Pres. Miller — If they keep changing from the first, second 

 and third, why do they stop at the third ?' Why not change 

 at the fourth? 



Mr. Schaper — Because there is no change of stock or blood, 

 it is the same blood. 



Mr. Baxter— The third generation the drone will be M 

 and the queen %, and it will finally become perfectly black. 



Pres. Miller — I will risk my reputation on figures and 

 give you my answer to it : When you get to the fifth genera- 

 tion you will practically have -i Italian stock ; you can con- 

 tinue at that, and you will be constantly approaching and 

 never quite reaching •'ij ; that is what your stock will be, % 

 Italian blood ; it will be -3 stock as nearly as you can get to 

 it. The first generation you have a pure Italian queen ; you 

 start with that pure queen; the next generation your first 

 cross is half blood, isn't it ? Now we have gone from one 

 right down to I4 ; what will your next queen be? %\ pure 

 Italian queen, pure black drone, result, the progeny is half- 

 blood queen Italian, and the pure Italian drone ; now with 

 that half-blood queen Italian and a pure drone, you will have 

 a % queeu ; now your stock rises that time, and it will be be- 

 tween % and li ; it will be % Italian ; it was first }4 Italian, 

 then % Italian, then % ; next time 11/16, and so it will 

 keep going up and down each time getting nearer and nearer 

 to -i, and if you keep on to infinity you will get '-3 stock. 



Mr. Wheeler— It is quite an important question to me 

 right there. What do you think would be the color of those 

 bees after 10 generations, after that process ? 



Dr. Besse— I don't think they would have more than one 

 ring around them, anyhow ! 



Pres. Killer — From my experience I should expect two 

 bands. 



Mr. Wheeler — My experience is they would go back to 

 black blood in color. I have most of the bees in my part of 

 the country, and I declare it Is almost impossible to keep their 

 color. I buy queens and keep selecting all the time, and my 

 stock runs back. 



Pres. Miller— Just upon this line I have had a good deal 

 of experience. For years and years the tendency seemed to 

 be that there was no holding toward the yellow blood at all, 

 and almost every year I would get imported queens from Italy, 

 and it seemed black stock was all I could have. Of late years, 

 it seems to be working the other way, and I account for it in 

 this way : In the first place there was black stock all around 

 me, and my stock was continuously mixing with that stock, 

 but gradually hybrids were about me, more or less pure stock, 

 and that has made a change in that direction. There is 

 another thing that comes in to make me think the tendency Is 

 no more to black than yellow. If as much. What is the ten- 

 dency to change when Italians are brought into this country ? 

 What have you found, when you have reared queens? Have 

 you had lighter or darker queens? If your experience has 

 been the same as mine, you will get lighter queens than pure- 



