

;e (|)ee-K^^peps' 



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• A MONTHLY JOURNAL 



Devotee to the Interests of Honey Producers. 

 $1.00 A YEAR, 

 w. z. HDTCHINSON, Editor and Proprietor. 



VOL. XV. FLINT, MICHIGAN, MAR. 10, 1902. NO. 5. 



INFLUENCE OF NURSE-BEES. 



BY F. B. SIMPSON. 



It Certainly is not Sufficient to Show 

 any Marked Influence in Only 

 One Generation. 



M' 



I'^rroi is worse than 



'R. A. C. Miller and myself, independ- 

 ently .'discussed the subject of "nurse- 

 iufluence" in the T)ecenil)er Review, and, 

 as we were both careful to give the sub- 

 ject its proper limitations, it is evident 

 that the editorial on pages 51 and 52 of 

 the American Bee Journal, was due to a 

 very careless reading of those articles. 

 The editorial in question states (in sub- 

 stance) that I "incline to the view that 

 a changing of nurse bees might produce 

 a queen very different from what she 

 would have been had her own sisters 

 been the nurses." It further says "if 

 the nurse bees have as much influence on 

 growing royally as some have urged, it 

 ought not to be difficult to prove it by a 

 5/?/^/<? exchange of eggs ! " (The italics 

 and astonisher are mine). 



Mr. Olmstead, in the February Review, 

 seems to have based his experiments ou 



ignorance — kailev. 



the same expectations. A re-reading of 

 the articles first mentioned will convince 

 any one that it was far from the desire of 

 either Mr. Miller or myself to express so 

 absurd an opinion. 



NURSK-INFLUENCK CAN NOT BE GRE.A.T 

 IN ONE r,ENER.\TlON. 



Suppose that the editor of the American 

 Bee Journal were correct in expectations, 

 and also that there could be a marked 

 difTerence in each generation, due to 

 nurse influence. Determine the number 

 of years that bees have been known to 

 exist, can it be supposed that with a 

 marked change in each generation, we 

 would still have the persistence of spe- 

 cific charaters that are now present ? 



Suppose I obtain a queen and colony 

 from a very warm climate, and suppose I 

 rear a queen daughter from her as soon 



