The BEE-itEKPEiis* review. 



13 



LONG - TONGUED HONEY BEES 



BY PROF. G. P. GILLETTE. 



Some Measurements Showing how Slight 



Are the Real Variations in the 



Length of Bees' Tongues. 



Kead at the recent Colorado JJee Keepers' Convention at Denver. 



¥HO first suggested breeding for long- 

 tongued honey bees, I do not know. 

 It is said that a Mr. W. Wankler, of Ger- 

 many, invented an instrument as early as 

 18S2, for the purpose of measuring the 

 length of bees' tongues. So far as I have 

 been able to learn, the first person to 

 Ijring this matter prominently before the 

 bee-keepers of this country was Mr. J. M. 

 Rankin of the Michigan Experiment 

 Station; at present, foul brood inspector 

 for that state. Mr. Rankin attempted to 

 breed up a long-tongued strain of bees 

 and believed that his efforts were crown- 

 ed with some measure of success. 



During the past year, or eighteen 

 months, the subject of "long-tongued" 

 or "red-clover" bees has been greatly 

 agitated in the bee journals of the coun- 

 try and has come to be a veritable fad. 

 A person having queens to sell feels that 

 he is greatly behind the times, a sort of 

 back number in this age of progress, un- 

 less he can guarantee his queens 10 pro- 

 duce a long-tongued variety of worker 

 bees. The result is, he so advertises them 

 without knowing the real facts in the 

 case, but with the belief that his bees 

 have tongues a? long as any. 



To a student of Vnology, particularly if 

 he be an entomologist, the idea of a long- 

 tongued race of honey bees coming 

 quickly into existence, seems extremely 

 improbable. There is no more imjjortant 

 organ in the anatomy of the honey bee 

 than its tongue, for the maintenance of 

 life, and nature hns been breeding this 

 tongue to a stand.ird length for so long 



a time that it is not likely to vary rapidly 

 under artificial selection where parentage 

 can be controlled upon one side only. 

 F'or these reasons the writer took no 

 interest in the matter when it was first 

 agitated. Finally, so many bee-keepers 

 of known honesty and sincerity of pur- 

 pose began to advocate breeding for long- 

 tongued bees and to advertise that they 

 had such bees for sale, that it seemed 

 necessary that some one, having the 

 facilities and the necessary training, 

 should make a careful study of the sub- 

 ject and report results. The writer be- 

 gan to collect bees for the purpose of 

 testing tongtie-length early last summer. 

 It was not possible to spare a large 

 amount of time for this purpose, but I 

 feel warranted in making this preliminary 

 report, and am expecting to publish a 

 fuller one after continuing the work 

 farther. 



WHAT JS MEANT BY TONGUE-LENGTH? 

 The so-called "tongue" of the honey 

 bee is a very highly specialized organ 

 composed of many parts. The longest 

 single piece is the ligula, which is very 

 flexible, yellowish in color, and thickly 

 set with short hairs. Into this the nec- 

 tar of the flower is taken. It is support- 

 ed by a black, rigid, chitinous piece call- 

 ed the mentum, which is about one-third 

 as long as the ligula. At the ^^ase of the 

 mentum is a still shorter piece which is 

 also hard and rigid, the sub-mentum, and 

 this is attached to the underside of the 

 head by two slender stiff rods, jointed at 

 the middle, and known as the cardos 



