THE QUARTERLY REVIEW OF BIOLOGY 



with them would have immediate eco- 

 nomic value. (6) Finally, the fact that 

 all the eggs of honeybees are potentially 

 parthenogenetic after maturation should 

 serve to simplify certain genetical methods. 

 The first task in attacking a problem in 

 genetical analysis is to determine whether 

 the parent stocks which are to be used are 

 homozygous for the characters to be 

 studied. Nearly all of the breeding 

 experiments so far performed have, there- 

 fore, been directed toward this end. Let 

 it be reiterated that American honeybees 

 are extremely heterozygous. A task of 

 considerable dimensions looms ahead of 

 segregating and stabilizing pure strains 

 of the types we design to work with. 

 The pursuit of this problem during the 

 past season was made possible by the 

 award of an August Heckscher Research 

 Assistantship under Dr. R. A. Emerson in 

 the Plant Breeding Department at Cornell 

 University. A beginning has been made 

 with five of the best defined varieties of 

 bees as follows: golden Italian, Carniolan, 



Caucasian, Black (German) and so-called 

 Albino. 



ONE QUEEN INSEMINATED FROM ANOTHER 

 QUEEN 



The mention here may be appropriate of 

 a new experiment which was performed 

 during the past season. This consisted 

 in inseminating a virgin queen with 

 sperm dissected from the spermatheca of 

 a mated queen. Number 38 was a black 

 virgin queen who on her twenty-fourth 

 day was injected with sperm taken from 

 the sperm reservoir of a golden queen 

 who had been mated on the wing some 

 weeks before, and who appeared normal 

 in every way, but who never laid well. 

 Two days later number 38 was dissected 

 and found to have received a slight but 

 certain degree of insemination. This 

 experiment admittedly partakes of the 

 nature of a laboratory curiosity, but the 

 pure science of today sometimes becomes 

 applied science tomorrow. 



LIST OF LITERATURE 



Alley, Henry. 1893. Thirty Years among the 



Bees. pp. 1-88. 

 . 1885. The Beekeepers' Handy Book. pp. 



1-184. 

 Babcock and Clausen. 1918. Genetics in Relation 



to Agriculture, pp. 1-675. 

 Bishop, G. H. 19x0. Fertilization in the honey- 

 bee. Jour. Exp. Zool., v.31, pp. ZX5-X86. 

 Cale, G. H. 19x6. The first successful attempt to 



control the mating of queen bees. Amer. Bee 



Jour., v. 66, pp. 533-534- 

 . 19x7. Controlled mating of queen bees 



established on a workable basis. The Bee 



World, v. 8, pp. 100-iox. 

 Casteel, D. S. 191X. The behavior of the honey- 

 bee in pollen collecting. U. S. Bur. Ent. Bull. 



1x1, pp. 1-36. 

 Castle, W. E. 19x4. Genetics and Eugenics, pp. 



1-395. 

 Cheshire, F. R. 1886. Bees and Beekeeping, v. I, 



pp. 1-336. 

 . 1888. Bees and Beekeeping, v. II, pp. 



1-65X. 



Comstock, A. B. 19x0. How to Keep Bees. pp. 



1-^2.30. 

 Cook, A. J. 1883. The Beekeepers' Guide, pp. 



!-337- 

 Cowan, T. W. 1911. British Beekeepers' Guide 



Book. pp. i-xx6. 



. 1904. The Honey Bee. pp. i^lxo. 



Doolittle, G. M. 1889. Scientific Queen Rearing. 



pp. 1-169. 

 Dzierzon, John. 1861. Rationelle Bienenzucht. 



Transl. by Dieck and Shuttered, i88x. pp. 1-350. 

 Gage, S. H. 19x0. The Microscope, pp. 1-472- 

 Galiperin, V. 1913. (On the question of the 



artificial fertilization of the queenbee.) Vestn. 



Obsc. Pcselo. v. xo, pp. 68-76. 

 Gooderham, C. B. 19x3. Bees and how to keep 



them. Dom. of Can., Dept. of Agr. Bull. 33, 



new series, pp. 1-60. 

 Huber, F. 179X and 1814. Observations on Bees. 



Transl. by C. P. Dadant, 19x6, pp. 1^x30. 

 Hommel, R. 19XX. Apiculture, pp. 1-494- 

 Hunter, J. 1884. A Manual of Beekeeping, pp. 



i-xi8. 





