10 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



January 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



^5 Established by Samuel Wagner in 1861 G= 



The oldest Bee Journal in the English language. Consolidated with The 

 National Bee Journal in 1874. 



Published monthly at Hamilton, Illinois. 



Entered as second-class matter at the postoffice at Hamilton, Illinois. 



Subscription Rates — In the United States and THE STAFF 



Mexico, *1 per year; three years. $2.50; five r p n .„. M _ rj:.„ r 



years, $4. Canadian postage 15 cents, and "- r " UADANT Editor 



other foreign countries 25 cents extra, per Frank C. Pellett Associate Editor 



year- C. C. Miller Questions Department 



All subscriptions are stopped at expiration. Date . 



of expiration is printed on wrapper label. Maurice G. Dadant Business Manager 



(Copyrig'-t 1918, by C. P. Dadant.) 



THE EDITOR'S VIEWPOINT 



The Deadly Female 



When Kipling wrote that "the fe- 

 male of the species is deadlier than 

 the male," he probably had not been 

 informed as to the truth of that as- 

 sertion in the generation of the bee. 

 We all know that the male or drone 

 has no sting, that he is perfectly 

 harmless, trusting only to his power 

 of flight to sustain him in his amor- 

 ous propensities. On the other hand 

 we know that every neuter or worker 

 is an undeveloped female, each pos- 

 sessing a sting capable of inflicting 

 unpleasant wounds and of killing 

 other workers, besides insects, mice, 

 etc. The perfect females, the queens, 

 who have a curved sting, are not fit- 

 ted for defending themselves against 

 any attacks except those of other 

 fully developed female bees; but 

 those who have witnessed the fights 

 between two queens or the eagerness 

 and cruelty with which a young 

 queen seeks her rivals, even when 

 unborn, to destroy them, must ac- 

 knowledge that the Kipling assertion 

 is true, that the female honeybee is 

 certainly "deadlier than the male." 



These remarks are brought about 

 through the reading of an article in 

 the Literary Digest of November 16, 

 in which Professor Glaser, of the 

 University of Michigan, quotes gene- 

 alogical studies by Major Charles B. 

 Davenport, "indicating clearly that 

 efficiency in fighting is far more like- 

 ly to be passed along the maternal 

 than the paternal line of the family. 

 The genius of Caesar, the career of 

 Napoleon, the brutality of Nero, are 

 all traceable to maternal inherit- 

 ance." 



But although the female of the bee 

 is "deadlier than the male," there are 

 some peculiarities of inheritance 



which do not indicate similar re- 

 sults to those quoted above, by the 

 authorities ascribing deadlier pro- 

 pensities on the maternal side in the 

 human race. Here are a few remarks 

 made among bees : 



At the International Congress of 

 Beekeepers held at Paris in 1900, to 

 which I was a delegate from the 

 United States, a French priest, whose 

 name now slips my memory, made 

 the assertion that the characteristics 

 of temper, or gentleness, in bees, 

 were transmitted through the male. 

 He asserted that a black queen, 

 mated with a drone of the pure Ital- 

 ian race, would transmit to her 

 worker daughters, and of course to 

 her queen daughters, the gentle dis- 

 position of the Italian bee. On the 

 other hand, an Italian queen, mated 

 with a drone of the restless and cross 

 common bee, would produce bees and 

 queens who would have the same 

 restless and irritable disposition as 

 the black bees from which her mate 

 was issued. 



We all know that hybrids from an 

 Italian queen are cross. After the 

 above meeting, I took pains to in- 

 vestigate the behavior of bees pro- 

 duced by the mating of black queens 

 with pure Italian drones, and I 

 found that the theory worked. It was 

 not difficult, at that time, to find such 

 hybrids, for we had numerous neigh- 

 bors who had never bought an Ital- 

 ian queen, whose lues were almost 

 pure Italians, through mating with 

 our own Italians. 



Since that time, I have been in- 

 clined to believe that the cross- 

 tempered "Goldens" may be the re- 

 sult of crosses of pure Italian bees 

 with drones of the irritable Cyprian 

 bees. 



It would be interesting to know 

 whether others have made similar 

 remarks, or whether the above ex- 

 periences were only accidental. 



However this may be, the fact re- 

 mains that, among bees, certainly, 

 "the female of the species is deadlier 

 than the male." 



The Oldest 

 Bee Periodicals 



Our contemporary bee magazine, 

 L'Apicoltore, of Milan, Italy, in its 

 September number, quotes a state- 

 ment in our September 1916 number, 

 in which we mention L'Apiculteur of 

 Paris and the American Bee Journal 

 as being the two oldest bee periodi- 

 cals in the world, also mentioning 

 Gleanings and the British Bee Jour- 

 nal as having been established in 

 1873. L'Apicoltore reminds us that 

 it was born in 1868. We knew this 

 and mentioned it in October, 1916, 

 and again at the time of L'Apicol- 

 tore's golden jubilee, in April, 1917. 

 The mention of Gleanings and the 

 British Bee Journal was not intended 

 to describe them as the next in age 

 to the American Bee Journal. Sev- 

 eral bee papers, including L'Apicol- 

 tore, were established in different 

 parts of the world between 1861 and 

 1873. In July, 1917, we mentioned 6 

 American magazines on bees which 

 were established between those 

 dates. There were also European 

 magazines, especially German and 

 French, but all have closed their 

 careers. So L'Apicoltore may truly 

 claim to be the third oldest bee mag- 

 azine in existence. Long may it live ! 



Change in Texas Conditions 



Copious rains in the last few weeks 

 have changed conditions materially 

 in Texas. Many beekeepers were 

 looking forward to a dismal prospect 

 of dry weather, honey dearth and 

 much feeding if colonies were to be 

 saved at all. 



Now all is changed. Bees have 

 made considerable honey this fall. In 

 nearly all instances they have filled 

 the brood-chamber so that they will 

 have plenty of honey to winter upon, 

 and in many cases considerable in- 

 crease has been made and a surplus 

 from the fall flowers extracted. 



It is yet too early to indicate just 

 what effect this will have on bee- 

 keeping in Texas in 1919, but one has 

 but to read the last issue of the pro- 

 gressive "Beekeepers' Item," pub- 

 lished and edited by Louis H. Scholl 

 at New Braunfels, Texas, to see that 



