MANUAL OF THE APIARY. 89 



queen only meets a single drone, and that only once, it might 

 be asked why nature was so improvident as to decree hundreds 

 of drones to an apiary or colony, whereas a score would 

 suffice as well. Nature takes cognizance of the importance 

 of the queen, and as she goes forth amidst the myriad dangers 

 of the outer world, it is safest and best that her stay abroad 

 be not protracted ; that the experience be not repeated, and 

 ■especially, that her meeting a drone be not delayed. Hence 

 the superabundance of drones — especially under natural con- 

 ditions, isolated in forest homes, where ravenous birds are 

 ever on the alert for insect game — is most wise and provident. 

 Nature is never " penny wise and pound foolish." In our 

 apiaries the need is wanting, and the condition, as it exists in 

 nature, is not enforced. 



The fact that parthenogenesis prevails in the production of 

 the drones, has led to the theory that from a pure queen, 

 however mated, must ever come a pure drone. My own expe- 

 rience and observation, which I believe are those of all 

 apiarists, has confirmed this theory. Yet, if the impure 

 mating of our cows, horses, and fowls, renders the females of 

 mixed blood ever afterward, as is believed and taught by many 

 who would seem most competent to judge — though I must 

 say I am somewhat skeptical in the matter — then we must 

 look closely as to our bees, for certainly, if a mammal, and 

 especially a fowl, is tainted by impure mating, then we may 

 expect the same of insects. In fowls such influence, if it 

 exists, must come simply from the presence in the female 

 generative organs of the germ-cells, or spermatozoa, and in 

 mammals, too, there is little more than this, for though they 

 are viviparous, so that the union and contact of the offspring 

 and mother seems very intimate, during foetal development, 

 yet there is no intermingling of the blood, for a membrane ever 

 separates that of the mother from that of the foetus, and only 

 the nutritious and waste elements pass from one to the other. 

 To claim that the mother is tainted through the circulation, 

 is like claiming that the same result would follow her inhaling 

 the breath of her progeny after birth. I can only say, that I 

 believe this whole matter is still involved in doubt, and still 

 needs more careful, scientific and prolonged observation. 



