340 THE BEEKEEPERS' REVIEW 



suming that four miles are necessary, an area of fifty square miles 

 would have to be free from bees. In no place except upon a des- 

 ert or upon a small island four miles from the nearest land could 

 one be sure that no bees existed in so large an area, unless by mak- 

 ing a careful search which would be so laborious as to be imprac- 

 ticable, especially as the search would have to be conducted at least 

 as often as once a year to keep track of swarms and introduced 

 bees. Deserts and islands are not available to the vast majority 

 of queen breeders, who indeed prefer regions highly favorable 

 for beekeeping for the purpose of rearing, mating, and testing 

 their queens. Such regions are usually well populated with bees, 

 and the important question arises, is it possible to breed bees by 

 selection, that is to mate the queens with drones from particular 

 colonies in them ? Ten years experience in isolating and maintain- 

 ing the British Golden bee at Ripple, near Dover, England, evolved 

 a system of mating that fairly realised this object there, and two 

 years of breeding experiments under very different conditions in 

 Canada indicate that the same system will probably be even more 

 successful here. 



The principle underlying this system is what I have called 

 "selection by color." The bee to be bred is yellow, and the matings 

 are arranged to take place in a region where only black bees occur. 

 In this way the purely mated queens are distinguishable from 

 the mismated ones by the brighter color of the workers they pro- 

 duce. Selection by color is, however, of little value unless means 

 are taken to secure a large percentage of pure matings. These 

 means are four in number :- 



(1). Selecting for the mating station a place that is as thinly 

 populated with bees as possible, and has none very near. At Ripple 

 there were no colonies within half a mile: outside this, up to four 

 miles, there were about 250 colonies. At Kazabazua,there were 

 none found within three miles and outside this, up to four miles 

 there were about thirty-six. 



(2). Rearing as large a number of drones as possible. 



(3). Rearing and mating as many queens as possible late in 

 the season when most of the drones of the neighboring colonies 

 have died. 



(4). A climate in which the maximum temperature is seldom 

 above 65 degrees Fahrenheit, without wind, or 70 degrees with a 

 light breeze, compelling the queens to get mated in such weather, 

 which restricts the flight of drones and queens. Restricted mat- 

 ing weather was a feature of the maritime climate of Ripple. 



