628 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



washed and re-weiglied after they are 

 dried, and the amount of honey de- 

 ducted, etc., from the amount fed. 



You will excuse me if I do not enter 

 into more minute details, but I think 

 that you will fully understand how the 

 experiments were made, and that you 

 will be able to repeat them, and I hope 

 your results will corroborate mine. 

 Do not be afraid to ask for more de- 

 tails, as I am at your service, and will 

 cheerfully give them. 



Bayou Goula, La., Sept., 1882. 



For the American Bee Journal. 



Control of Fertilization. 



G. W. DEMAREE. 



Bee-keepers of America have just 

 cause to feel proud of the jjrogress 

 already made in the science of breed- 

 ing, and the manipulation of bees, yet 

 they have cause to feel humiliated 

 that one of the chief factors that go 

 to make up the conditions of scientific 

 breeding has, thus far, eluded the 

 grasp of the most studious and care- 

 tul of our apiarists. I refer to a more 

 perfect control of the males or drones 

 in the process of mating. 



Every other important problem per- 

 taining to the science has been solved 

 by the combined wisdom of the fra- 

 ternity, but before this dark mystery 

 we stand as helpless as so many in- 

 fants. 



It is admitted by all intelligent 

 breeders, no matter what may be the 

 peculiar views of each as to tiie most 

 profitable " strain " or breed of bees, 

 that careful selection is essential to 

 successful breeding. It is an easy 

 matter to control the stock on the side 

 of the mother bee, both as to the 

 "strain" or type sought to be per- 

 fected, and the individual specimens 

 best qualified to transmit the quali- 

 ties sought for in breeding. But with 

 our present knowledge no such con- 

 trol can be had over the males or 

 drones. It is true that much may, 

 and has been done by resorting to 

 isolated localities where the queens 

 can meet no other drones than such as 

 the apiarist keeps in his own yard, 

 but this can only give general control. 

 It places the apiarist as a breeder but 

 little above the shepherds of thous- 

 ands of years ago whose flocks bred 

 promiscuously, regardless of the weak 

 and the strong. 



It is claimed that the males can be 

 controlled in breeding by the use of all 

 worker combs, by which means such 

 drones as are not desirable may be 

 suppressed. All this looks feasible, 

 but a philosophical question arises 

 here as to what will be the tendency 

 of such a course. All will admit that 

 the instinetB of bees leads them to 

 rear more or less of drones even in 

 worker combs, and these dwarfed 

 specimens will go forth to propagate 

 the race, and thus take the place of 

 properly developed specimens. It is 

 not hard to foresee the evil effects that 

 must ultimately follow such a course. 



These dangers, however, can be 

 averted to a good degree by allowing 

 each colony a few square inches of 

 drone cells to satisfy their yearning 



for drone progeny, and remove tlie 

 necessity. of rearing dwarfs for the 

 want of full-sized cells. 



The frame which contains the drone 

 cells should be marked so that but 

 little time need be lost wlien it is de- 

 sirable to clip the heads of the drones 

 with the honey knife. 



The genuine "innocence " of some 

 who write on the subject of " purely 

 mated" queens is calculated to pro- 

 voke a smile on the part of those who 

 have given the subject careful atten- 

 tion. Those who expect to have their 

 queens mated with the drones reared 

 by a few select colonies in their own 

 apiaries, when situated in a locality 

 where tiiere are other bees, simply de- 

 ceive themselves and those who 

 " bite " at their advertisements. Situ- 

 ated as I have been for years v>ast I 

 could give facts enough to show the 

 utter unreliability of such a course in 

 breeding. 



It requires concert of action on the 

 part of those who keep bees in any lo- 

 cality to insure uniformity of mating 

 even as to "stripes," as some inter- 

 ested breeders sneeringly put it. I 

 wish to repeat here what I have said 

 somewhere in my writing, viz. : That 

 "an inferior specimen of a superior 

 race is not necessarily better than a 

 superior specimen of an inferior race." 

 I think this is a fact tliat will hold 

 good under all circumstances. Hence, 

 if the honey bee is not an exception to 

 all the rules known to the breeders of 

 live stock, why, then, to have perfect 

 control, the breeder must be able to 

 select not only the race or " type " to 

 breed from, but such specimens of the 

 race or type as in his judgment are 

 best qualified to transmit the quali- 

 ties sought to be established in his 

 ideal bee. By careful application of 

 these rules our stock breeders have 

 been able to surprise the world with 

 their wonderful achievements. But 

 I undertook to write this essay in or- 

 der to relate some experiments which 

 I have tried the past season in my re- 

 searches for a method to control" fer- 

 tilization, and this I do with the hope 

 that although they were failures as to 

 the main object in view, they will not 

 be altogether unprofitable and unin- 

 teresting. After trying many experi- 

 ments to induce queens to mate in 

 confinement with utter failures, it oc- 

 curred to me that if some device 

 could be invented which would allow' 

 the workers to pass out into the open 

 air and at the same place permit the 

 queen and drones to pass into an 

 apartment prepared for them, and fly 

 voluntarily, the conditions would con- 

 form so nearly to Nature's method 

 that there would l)e hopes of success. 

 To carry out this plan I made a box 

 18 inches square at the top by 18x2 

 inches at the bottom, and 12 inches 

 deep, thus giving a box — when set on 

 legs for a support — with three per- 

 pendicular and one sloping side, which 

 last answered as a sloping bottom to 

 the box. On top of this box was set a 

 " tent " the same size of the top of the 

 box and 12 inches deep, made like a 

 square "show case." The sides of 

 the tent were covered with paper cam- 

 bric, and the top with the thinnest 

 crape I could get. A common nucleus 



hive was fastened against the perpen- 

 dicular side of the box opposite to the 

 sloping side, and its entrance was 

 made to connect with a " covered 

 way " through the narrow part of the 

 box at the bottom of the angle. At 

 the termination of the "covered 

 way " two saw cuts were made so as 

 to admit a perforated tin plate to an- 

 swer as a queen and drone excluder. 

 The covered way was so arranged that 

 the worker bees could pass out through 

 the perforations in the tin plate, and 

 when the covered way was uncovered 

 on the inside of the tent, the queen 

 and drones being excluded from pass- 

 ing out throuiTii the slots in the tin, 

 could rise and fly in the tent. Having 

 matters arranged in this way, I stocked 

 the nucleus hive m the usual way, ex- 

 cept I fitted a piece of drone larvae 

 j ust ready to hatch in one of the combs, 

 and 24 hours afterward I gave the 

 nucleus a matured queen cell. The 

 drones were hatching continually, and 

 I " sorted " them, carefully removing 

 such as did not come up to my stand- 

 ard of " the best." There were about 

 two dozen of thein when culled. 



When the drones were four or five 

 days old they began to come to the en- 

 trance, and seeing the light above, 

 they made no effort to pass out through 

 the" holes in the tin, but rose and flew 

 lively in the tent. I watched them 

 with much interest, fearing that they 

 would not know how to return when 

 their frolic was over, but in this there 

 were no grounds for fears ; they could 

 pass from the entrance to the tent 

 and back again as friskily as if under 

 no restraint whatever' Thus far 

 things looked flattering, and I waited 

 for the queen's turn to try her skill. 

 On the evening of the fifth day of her 

 age she came out and flew with pomp 

 and splendor in the tent, the soft 

 walls and roof of the tent were but 

 little in her way, and she seemed to 

 enjoy life hugely. She was able to 

 return without the least confusion. 

 The first day she made six trials in 

 the tent, all the while from a half 

 dozen to a dozen drones were flying 

 with her, and they waltzed around in 

 the gayest fashion. Day after day 

 the queen and drones sported in the 

 tent together, as though they had not 

 the remotest idea that they were males 

 and female, and old enough to get 

 married. She waltzed out two sets of 

 drones, and kept up her flights till 20 

 days old and then gave it up. At 30 

 days old, she began to lay eggs and 

 laid sparingly for two or three days 

 and died. 



The second experiment was much 

 like the first as to the flights of the 

 queen in the tent. She kept up her 

 flights with the drones till she was 18 

 days old. On the evening of the 

 eighteenth day of her age I opened a 

 valve at the top of the tent and let her 

 out ; she was gone but a short time 

 and returned, but in a few minutes 

 she came out again and disappeared 

 into space ; the result was that in just 

 30 minutes from the time she was first 

 let into the open air she returned 

 with the evidence of having met a 

 drone, and in a little over two days 

 after she was laying. She lived only 

 about a week after she commenced to 



