64 QUEEN-REARING IN ENGLAND. 



But we can see that they indicate Mendelian inheritance. 

 Indeed, up to a certain point, the simple Mendelian rule 

 seems to be followed. The golden queen mated by the 

 black drone produces the heterozygous intermediate. Mated 

 by the intermediate, she produces goldens and intermediates, 

 but no blacks (see Fig. 33). Again, the intermediate mated 

 by the intermediate produces a small number of goldens, 

 a large number of intermediates, and a small number of 

 blacks. But the appearance of every grade of intermediate 

 in the second generation shows that we are here probably 

 dealing with more than one factor, though, as Punnett has 

 shown in the case of the cross between a " Silky" hen arid 

 a ' ' Brown Leghorn ' ' cock, there need not be more than 

 two if it be assumed that they interact on one another in 

 different ways and to different degrees. 



It seems unprofitable to speculate further as to the in- 

 heritance of the golden and black characters in queen and 

 worker till more evidence has been collected, and we may 

 turn our attention to the more practical question of how 

 far INIendelism can help us in our efforts to improve the 

 bee. A lesson it teaches us — that is, perhaps, of greater 

 immediate value than any other — is that if the characters 

 that we want depend on the heterozygous nature of the 

 heterozygotes, the way to get them is to breed together the 

 two pure homozvgotes. Thus from the union golden x 

 black we get all intermediates, whereas from the union 

 intermediate x intermediate we get only a proportion of 

 intermediates. 



Fortunately, hampered as bee-breeding is by great 

 difficulties, the particular union, golden queen x black 

 drone, is practically attainable on a large scale, and, more 

 fortunate still, the intermediate produced by it does possess 

 certain qualities that are very desirable. In the first place, 

 as in the case of heterozygotes in many plants and animals, 

 it possesses the added vigour due to the crossing. This 

 vigour shows itself in great energy, hardiness, and industry 

 in honey gathering. The hybrids produce larger average 

 yields of honey per colony than blacks. They are con- 

 siderably larger than goldens (in both queen and worker) 

 and slightly larger than blacks. With the cross under 

 consideration, golden queen by black drone, ^vhich is the 



