THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



105 



FORCED QUEENS OF NO VAI^UE. 

 /wr^'fl' queen-cells, even in a full col- 

 ony, need a good deal of judicious and 

 resolute culling to obtain results that 

 would justify using them at all; hvX forced 

 queens from a lueak colony are, in my 

 experience, simplv zvorthless. They are 

 so much like workers that thej^ are likely 



either to die the following winter, or to 

 occupy the hive the following summer to 

 no purpose. 



What I have written is more to caution 

 than to advise. You have already given 

 good advice in your answer to Mr. 

 Pearce's questions. 



Rock Rift, N. Y. Mar. 24, 1902. 



FOOD AND BLOOD OF THE WORKERS. 



BY L. STAGHELHAUSEN. 



An Explanation of how the Workers may Greatly Influ- 

 ence the Larvae, Queen and Drones. 



^•^•■^/^ 



Blood is the base of all things — bailey. 



FOR some time we have been reading 

 in the Review, and other bee-journals, 

 articles on improvement of the honey 

 bee by selection for breeding. This is a 

 very interesting and important, but com- 

 paratively new matter. We know that 

 by the laws of variation, inheritance and 

 selection, all changes in living nature 

 are secured. With animals under do- 

 mesticatioTi man does the selection, and 

 if his selection is done properly, he the 

 more quickly secures such changes as are 

 ilesired by him. 



HOW THE I'.RKEDING OF BEES DIFFERS 

 FROM TH.\T OF OTHER ANIM.\ES. 



The main idea of all these articles is, 

 that the experience gained in breeding 

 other animals should be the basis for our 

 work in breeding bees. As I understand, 

 Mr. V . B. Simpson is a renowned horse- 

 breeder, and his knowledge and experi- 

 ence is certainly very valuable, but bees 

 and horses are very difTerent in many re- 

 spects. In breeding horses, we select 

 such animals as have the desired qualities 

 and characteristics; in breeding bees we 

 can't do this, because the worker bees, 

 which have the desired (]nalifications can't 

 be used for breeding, and the drones and 

 queens which we select for breeding do 

 not have these qualifications themselves. 



If we have a colony of bees consisting of 

 workers possessing qualities of any kind 

 by which much hone}^ is secured, it is ab- 

 .solutely impossible to see how these qual- 

 ities could be transmitted to coming 

 generations, if the worker bees have 

 no influence on the coming generations. 

 Mr. Simpson sees this very clearly, as he 

 says, page 303 — 1901, '''1 feel certain 

 that the workers must influence the eggs 

 as well as the brood; but as to how it is 

 done I cannot say, as I don't know." 

 Other writers do a considerable amount 

 of guessing in this respect. 

 WHV THE FOOD OF THE QUEEN AND 

 DRONES IS IDICNTICAL WITH 

 THE BLOOD OF THE 

 WORKERS. 

 F. Greiner page 73 — 1902, mentions 

 that the blood of the zvorkers circulates in 

 \.hQveins{f) of the queen and the drones, 

 and that the food, which is passed from 

 the mouth of the worker to that of the 

 queen and drone, is identical with the 

 blood of the bee, and that this is the rea- 

 son that we say a colony of bees is not 

 unlike an individual, as a single organ- 

 ism. For this assertion he gives no rea- 

 son or proof; and, at the same time, he 

 says that this chyle is the product of the 

 glands and the general organism of the 



