Pebeuaet 5, 1915] 



SCIENCE 



219 



primary crosses stocks were selected Which 

 had been under observation for several genera- 

 tions without having shown any indication of 

 impurity. 



Pure Italian queens mated to Oarniolan. 

 drones produce workers and queens which are 

 indistinguishable, so far as color is concerned, 

 from the parent Italian stock: that is, in the 

 Fi generation of this, the " primary," cross, 

 the yellow color is completely dominant. In 

 the reciprocal cross, in which Carniolan 

 queens are mated to Italian drones, the yellow 

 color is also dominant, but not as completely 

 so as in the primary cross : the Fj queens and 

 workers show nearly, but not quite, as much 

 yellow color as the parent Italian stock. The 

 significance of this in practical bee-breeding is 

 at once apparent. For years professional queen- 

 breeders have assumed that if an Italian 

 queen throws workers which show the typical 

 Italian coloring it is prima facie evidence that 

 she has been purely mated. From the above 

 results it is evident that such is not neces- 

 sarily the case, for such a queen might have 

 mated to either an Italian or Carniolan 

 drone (or even, presumably, to a black drone), 

 and in either case her workers would have 

 the typical Italian color. The purity of an 

 Italian queen's mating therefore can not be 

 determined by an examination of her workers. 

 Further reference to this is made below. The 

 production of yellow workers by a pure Carni- 

 olan queen, on the other hand, immediately 

 stamps her as having been impurely mated. 



There is also excellent evidence as to the 

 inheritance of characteristics other than color. 

 For example, the marked proclivity of the 

 Camiolans to use wax instead of propolis for 

 sealing crevices, fastening frames together, 

 attaching hive-covers to frames, etc., comes 

 dominantly to the surface in the Fj genera- 

 tion of the primary cross. In the F^ genera- 

 tion of the reciprocal cross this trait is also 

 much more in evidence than in the pure 

 Italian race, though not as completely domi- 

 nant as in the case of the primary cross. 



It seems to be a well-established law of he- 

 redity that an individual always produces 

 gametes of the same kind as those of which 



it is itself composed. With this law the queen- 

 bee appears to comply without exception. As 

 the drone is produced parthenogeneticaUy he 

 is essentially a gamete and behaves as such in 

 inheritance, at least so far as the color factor 

 is concerned. Pure Italian queens mated to 

 Carniolan drones produce only Italian drones; 

 and Carniolan queens mated to Italian 

 drones produce only Carniolan drones. This 

 is strictly in accordance with the theory of 

 Dzierson. However, the daughters of Italian 

 queens which have mated to Carniolan drones 

 produce both Italian and Carniolan drones, 

 produce them in equal numbers, and do not 

 produce any other kind. The F^ queens of 

 the reciprocal cross likewise produce drones 

 of these twO' kinds and in equal numbers. 

 This is in accordance with the theoretical ex- 

 pectation under Mendelian law. If the con- 

 stitution of a pure Italian queen be represented 

 by II and of a pure Carniolan queen by CC, 

 the former will produce gametes I and I, and 

 the latter, gametes C and C, these being Ital- 

 ian and Carniolan drones, respectively. A 

 hybrid queen, however, has the constitution 

 IC and produces gametes I and C in equal 

 numbers, these of course materializing as 

 Italian and Carniolan drones. The practical 

 application of this is that the only test of an 

 Italian queen's mating is found in the color 

 of the drones produced by her daughters. 



Another interesting consideration is that 

 the production of an Fj drone seems to be an 

 impossibility and this, in turn, makes the pro- 

 duction of a strict F„ generation look like an- 

 other impossibility. Beekeepers will at once 

 argue that drones intermediate in color occur 

 in nature, and such is the ease. However, drones 

 from purely mated queens are knovm to vary 

 widely in color and this may possibly explain 

 the occurrence of intermediate coloring. We 

 are still in ignorance regarding the causes of 

 this variation, and it is hoped that further 

 data from the mating-station will throw more 

 light on this as well as on other phases of this 

 interesting problem. 



WiLMON ISTewell 



College Station, Texas, 

 December 18, 1914 



