ILLINOIS STATE BEE-KEEPERS ASSOCIATION 



163 



merited, but he had proved my theory 

 to be correct. Mr. Doolittle takes the 

 position' that it does affect the progeny 

 of the queen, and I beheve he says the 

 fourth generation has produced a queen 

 no one could tell from a hybrid. While 

 I believe he is candid and sincere in his 

 conclusions, the manner in which his 

 experiments were conducted I am satis- 

 fied was erroneous. I doubt very much 

 whether Mr. Doolittle is so situated that 

 he can have four generations of bees 

 and the fourth queen successfully ferti- 

 lized where he is situated, on account 

 of the fact that there are hybrid bees all 

 around him, and on that account I think 

 it is true that the drone-progeny is af- 

 fected by her fertilization. The sperma- 

 tozoa are lodged there — never escape 

 at the will of the queen. When deposit- 

 ing a worker-egg she fertilizes that at 

 will as it passes the mouth of the sper- 

 matheca. To suppose that affects the 

 drone-progeny is to suppose it becomes 

 a part of her system, that the sperma- 

 tozoa become food and consequently 

 part of the system of the queen. That 

 is an utter impossibility. The revela- 

 tions of the microscope prove the con- 

 trary, and I am satisfied that Mr. Doo- 

 little, although honest and sincere in 

 what he teaches, is mistaken-, and I 

 would not like at this time to have the 

 idea go out that such a thing is pos- 

 sible, because it is not. 



Requeening or Superseding Queens. 



Mr. Wheeler — Before dinner I was 

 going to speak of the value of chang- 

 ing queens. We read a great deal, and 

 it was the talk of some of the gentle- 

 men before dinner, about when a colony 

 showed weakness or anything the matter 

 with it, to change queens, and by select- 

 ing the right queen you improve your 

 stock of bees. That is right to a cer- 

 tain extent, but I think it is carried 

 too far. In the spring, quite often when 

 the bees come out of the cellar, they will 

 fly together and are quite apt to kill 

 off the queen. There will be a very 

 strong colony of bees, and when I look 

 a little later they will have their queen 

 killed, and there is a great lot of bees, 

 and what am I to do with those bees? 

 They are losing their time. I will 

 look around and find a colony withered 

 away — a few bees with a queen. 1 put 

 that queen in the colony with the colony 

 of bees and that queen will lay eggs, 

 when she' gets started, for all the bees 



that are there — fill 2 or 3 hives. If she 

 had been left with that little colony, 

 her stock was bad and they were not 

 saving. I think that the bees have a 

 great influence over the queen. The care 

 they give a queen determines how many 

 eggs she will lay, and determines her 

 life as long as she has her youth and 

 strength, and I think there is a great 

 deal too much stress laid on the point 

 of the queen being to blame for a 

 colony being weak and dwindling. 



Progress of Bee-Keeping. 



"Have we made any progress in our 

 industry in the last twenty-five years? 

 If so, what is it?" 



Dr. Miller — I think we have made 

 some progress right in that very way, 

 if Mr. Wheeler will pardon me, in try- 

 ing to do something toward getting bet- 

 ter stock. It is all very true that is 

 makes a big difference. You put a 

 queen into a little handful of bees or 

 with a strong colony — she is a differ- 

 ent queen altogether. But, after all, 

 there is a material difference in the 

 queens themselves, and I would de- 

 precate the idea of trying to discourage 

 any one from doing all he can to im- 

 prove his bees by getting better stock. 

 As far as improvement is concerned, I 

 think we have made some changes with- 

 in the last 24 hours, in our views — 

 some of us. There is a change going 

 on. I am very sure that I know some 

 things I did not know 25 years ago, 

 and I am very sure that there are some 

 things I do not know now that I 

 thought I knew 25 years ago. Whether 

 it is an improvement or not I am not 

 so certain, but there are changes going 

 on, and when we are not standing dead 

 still there is a possibility of our im- 

 proving, so that I think the thing is 

 hopeful that we are going on a little. 

 _ Mr. Wilcox — It is 25 years or more 

 since I commenced attending the 

 "Northwestern" convention and other 

 conventions in this city, and as I com- 

 pare what I have heard today and yes- 

 terday, with what I heard then, I am 

 very emphatically of the opinion that 

 the great mass of bee-keepers who at- 

 tend conventions have made improve- 

 ments, have improved themselves in 

 knowledge. At that time half a dozen 

 men would run a large convention. The 

 rest knew nothing, or said nothing, any- 

 way, and did not seem to understand 

 fully what they heard. I am sure that 



