ILLINOIS STATE BEE-KEEPERS ASSOCIATION 



81 



port of questions now considered as 

 merely theoretical by most bee-keepers. 

 At the Chicago meeting of this Asso- 

 ciation, I spoke at some length of the 

 need of better bees. Here is one place 

 where science can work untold wonders 

 for Apiculture. Of recent years breed- 

 ing has become a subject of very general 

 discussion, and much scientific work has 

 been done on variation and heredity, the 

 ground-work of breeding. By contin- 

 ually selecting first-class breeding ma- 

 terial a bee-keeper may improve his 

 stock until he really has a superior line 

 of bees. He cannot expect, however, to 

 make progress which will be lasting un- 

 less he knows something about the 

 hereditary transmission of characters, 

 and the variations according to the laws 

 of chance of all characters. The only 

 way for a bee-keeper to become a breed- 

 er is by studying scientific works, and 

 doing some work himself, and I regret 

 to say that very few of our queen-rear- 

 ers are doing this. Breeders in other 

 lines of work are studying and working 

 on these problems, and their results 

 can be read by breeders of queens. Here 

 science can help Apiculture. 



As an example of what science can 

 do for bee-keeping, take the work on 

 bee-diseases. We know the causes of 

 oup two worst bee-diseases, and by com- 

 parisons (scientific method) we know 

 what to do to destroy disease. Without 

 scientific work on this subject the prac- 

 tical bee-keeper would be absolutely ig- 

 norant as to the nature of the different 

 diseases, and cures would be mere ac- 

 cidents. As an example of the inef- 

 fectiveness of efforts of practical men in 

 the face of a lack of scientific investiga- 

 tion we have only to cite the discus- 

 sions of bee-paralysis, as it is called. A 

 number of practical men, thoroughly 

 competent from a practical standpoint, 

 have undertaken to write on paralysis, 

 and several cures have been advocated 

 for this particular disease. No one can 

 doubt, however, that we are still in ig- 

 norance of a universal cure and I am 

 inclined to the opinion that we will re- 

 main in this state until the cause of the 

 disease is determined by some one 

 thoroughly trained in methods of scien- 

 tific observation. In his book, "Bees 

 and Bee-Keeping," Cheshire mentions a 

 bacterium. Bacillus gaytoni, which he 

 says causes the workers to become 

 shiny; but this is no proof that Bacillus 

 gaytoni causes paralysis. 



Bee-Keeping would be benefited by 

 work in various branches of science. 

 Take, for example, work in chemistry. 

 Those who have had anything to do 

 with having samples of honey analyzed 

 cannot fail to conclude that the work 

 that has been don-e so far is entirely un-. 

 satisfactory, and that there is great need 

 of better methods of honey analysis. 

 The polariscope method is not reliable 

 enough so that adulteration can be 

 determined with certainty, because 

 honeys from different sources differ 

 so greatly in their polarization. The 

 same condition is true to almost as great 

 an extent, of wax-analysis. 



While the bee-keeper must depend 

 largely upon natural forage, the fact 

 still remains that the industry would 

 be greatly benefited by a careful study 

 of honey-producing floras. We need to 

 know the exact climatic and soil con- 

 ditions necessary to the growth of all 

 our honey-plants so that they produce 

 nectar, for with such knowledge we 

 would be able to make plantings of 

 value. The exact geographical distribu- 

 tion of the honey-producing plants, and 

 the marking out of the areas in which 

 given plants secrete nectar, would help 

 greatly. 



The bee-keeper would be greatly bene- 

 fited by better information as to the 

 function of the bee in fertilizing flowers. 

 At present it often happens that there 

 are times when bees are looked on as 

 very detrimental, but if the apiarist has 

 an array of actual facts to present in 

 place of the generalities now indulged 

 in by the journals, it would have more 

 weight with municipalities which try to 

 banish bees, and in similar cases. 



And now as to scientific work on the 

 bees themselves : Those present may 

 remember the bootless discussion in the 

 bee- journals some time back as to 

 whether bees pack pollen into cells with 

 their heads. In the face of such dis- 

 cussions the question might well be 

 asked why some one did not look. It 

 was argued that the head of the bee 

 is hard, and that it could pack pollen 

 if it wished to; but the writers were 

 content to argue, and not investigate, 

 reminding one very forcibly of the aca- 

 demic discussions of the middle ages. 



Properly constructed observation hives 

 are of some value in such a case. For- 

 tunately or otherwise, we have a few 

 writers for apicultural papers who feel 

 fully competent to cope with any sub- 



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