428 
Beekeeping 
that, the bee breeder may hope to modify his bees along 
these lines by proper care in selecting his breeding material. 
The actual results of practical beekeepers also show that 
improvement may be made, as indicated by increased crops. 
Study of breeding needed. 
It is not practical in this place to enter upon an elaborate 
discussion of the methods and results of modern breeding. 
To what characters of bees Mendelian inheritance is oper¬ 
ative has not been shown by the work so far done although 
color is probably so inherited. Bee breeding has not been 
subject to the researches of the theoretical breeders but work 
of this character is greatly to be desired. Certain funda¬ 
mental facts should be mentioned, however, and they are 
chosen here because they have been misunderstood by bee¬ 
keepers writing for bee journals. The fact that a queen is 
poorly developed because of inadequate care during develop¬ 
ment does not make her undesirable as a breeding queen 
and, conversely, prolificness induced by extra care and 
manipulation does not make a queen more valuable for 
breeding, because characters acquired during the life of the 
individual are not inherited. 
Selection of drones. 
As great care should be exercised in choosing the drones 
as is employed in selecting the breeding queen, but most 
beekeepers fail to give this subject adequate consideration. 
In general the drone (father) is just as influential in deciding 
the character of the offspring as is the queen (mother). 
Drones may be selected by allowing drones to fly only from 
the colony or colonies which are up to the breeding standard 
and drone production in these colonies may be increased by 
providing drone comb. Drone rearing in other colonies 
may be restricted by giving only worker comb or the un¬ 
desirable drones may be trapped by a queen and drone trap 
(Fig. 30). While the beekeeper cannot choose the indi¬ 
vidual drone with which a queen mates he can increase the 
