From The Pennsylvania Beekeeper, 1954
(may contain typos)


BURBANKING THE HONEY BEE
By M. G. Hepner, North East, Pa.

Everybody knows the great work which Luther Burbank has done in his particular sphere, the vegetable world. We are indebted to him for new varieties of fruits, vegetables, and flowers. He achieved his success by following the Mendel Law of selective breeding, and by cross fertilization, budding, and grafting. Whenever he desired to produce a certain variety, he would apply these laws and methods, until he had found what he wanted, and then made use of the selective breeding method to perpetuate and perfect the new variety. 

Since the beginnings of apiculture in our country-and for that matter in any other country-beemen have been more or less dissatisfied with the bees they had to work with. The brown and black bees of our pioneers were either too cross, or too temperamental and nervous, or did not resist disease as wen as one wished them to do, or could not successfully cope with the wax moth, or were not able to withstand the rigors of our cold winters. As early as the late middle of last century, James LeBare, of Kentucky, had planned to go to Egypt and to bring back to the U. S. A. some colonies of the Egyptian Bee. However, due to dissension among his backers this plan was never carried out. Then came experiments with Cyprians, Holy Lands, Carniolans, Caucasians, and Italians. Although Benton and Rauchfuss and a few others became convinced of the merits of the Caucasian bee, owing to the tremendous influence of Langstroth and A. I. Root with his magazine "Gleanings in Bee Culture," the Italian bee finally became the type adopted most generally throughout the land. Still, and what I am going to say now I wish to state with the greatest emphasis the Italian like every other race of bees has besides her good points also a number of defects. If it were not so, we would not witness the present-day effort to find the IDEAL BEE, and if such a bee cannot be found in a natural state, to produce it by


BURBANKING THE HONEY BEE

Now, let us see what we want: We want a bee that possesses:

1. The gentleness of the Caucasian.

2. The prolificness of the Carniolan, without their swarming tendency.

3. The wax production of the Giant Indian.

4. The large honey sack of the Bumble Bee.

5. The wing power of the Saharan Bee.

6. The long tongue of the best of Caucasians,

7. The cold resistance of the Caucasian and the Siberian.

8. The bee using wax instead of propolis, like the Carniolan, and white capping of sections, like that of the dark races.

9. The beauty of color of the Golden Italian.

10. The easy manner of finding the queen, like the leather-colored Italian.

11. The length and strength of leg of the best of the Caucasians.

12. The strong constitution required to resist and overcome European and American Foul Brood and other bee diseases. And a number of other points, as flying at lower temperatures, longer working hours, and greater thriftiness.

Quite a program, I must confess. But, who is afraid? Rome was not built in a day, nor has mankind achieved its present status of civilization, obtained its knowledge and science, over night. And so our scientists have gone to work and have made a start by selective breeding, by budding and grafting just like Burbank. Yes, they argue, we have produced certain types of horses, of swine, of beef cattle, of poultry, and even of dogs, goats, and rabbits by selective breeding: why not the ideal bee by the same method? But there is the rub! You can select your male and female of these animals and birds, and keep them within a confined space, without interference of individuals of an undesirable type, and you will obtain a progeny according to your plans. And this progeny you can use the same way to multiply the new breed, until you have established a line-bred type. But that cannot be done with bees, for even if you select your queen and your drone, you are never certain of the result, for the mating of these takes place on the wing, often at great distances, and an undesirable drone may reach your selected queen before your selected drone can find her. Attempts have been made to build large enclosures for the mating flight, but owing to their extent it has not been possible to exclude all undesirable individuals and the experiments had to be given up as failures. Well, then go to some place where there are no bees, take your queens and drones there and let them loose. I remember reading a long time ago of just such an attempt, when the breeder interested in securing purely-mated Italians located his breeding colonies on an island off the harbor of Toronto. He was certain, that there were no other bees on the island, because no one had ever kept bees there. Just the same, many of his queens were mismated. Now, either there were undesirable drones on the island or some had come over from the main land to visit his queens, or the queens themselves went on an excursion to the mainland. For, what is a matter of seven miles to a strong drone or a good healthy young queen? A similar experiment, I understand was made on some islands in Lake Michigan, but that also turned out to be a failure. Or some isolated location on land, perhaps? Ask some of the queen breeders in the South, and they will tell you how difficult it is, for instance, to breed pure Caucasians in a district which had been overrun by Italian stock as long as 10, even 20 years ago. A Northern breeder of Caucasians told me that although he bred his queens by the Mendel Law, he could not guarantee more than 70 per cent. purely mated. Of course, where Italians have been bred for a long time, and no new importations of other races have occurred, it is possible to raise a pure strain. Even then, a queen from some other breeder, acquired for cross breeding, may bring in blood of some other race.

But even where breeders have succeeded in continuing a pure strain, there is no important improvement of the race itself, or at best one that is accidental only and temporary. As example I mention the so-called Red Clover Queens heavily advertised around the beginning of the present century. I was a student then in Maryland, and we sent for one of those Red Clover Queens from old A. I. Root, who thought he had found a long-tongued bee that would just roll in the nectar from Red Clover. I am sorry to say the progeny of that Red Clover Queen -- for which we had paid a good price -- did not prove to be any different from the ordinary Italian bee which we had in our apiary. If, then, it is so difficult to improve a strain within itself by selective breeding, how much more difficult will it be to achieve this improvement by trying to impart to one race of bees the desirable points of another race by this process.

Another method must be followed, and that is what the Scientists of Beedom call "controlled mating." This is simply the mating or a queen with a select drone under confinement. But what a job! We have all read of the method worked out by Dr. Watson. Well, if you have had the experience to be put on an operation table in a hospital, and have the surgeon experiment on you, you can easily understand why this method always reminds me of a surgical operation. Under a powerful light on the laboratory table the poor queen and her unfortunate mate are operated on and by use of delicate instruments. and with the aid of a microscope the transfer of the seminal fluid of the drone into the body of the queen is effected. You will ask: is this method successful? Yes, it is, and the longer Dr. Watson and his followers are practicing it, the more perfect they become, and the more controlled-mated queens they turn out. But, it is and will always remain a laboratory method, out of reach of the ordinary breeder of queens.

There is also another method of controlled mating, the so-called hand mating method. What is the difference between this and Dr. Watson's method? In the latter, the seminal fluid is transferred into the oviduct of the queen, whilst in the hand-mating method the process of fertilizing the queen is the same as in nature, that is a real copulation between drone and queen. This method Is not as recent as one would imagine. Already in 1880, Wilhelm Wankler, a famous German queen breeder, began to experiment in this line. After many failures, he finally succeeded and in 1927, at the convention of apiarists in Leitmeritz, Bohemia, he gave an account of his method and showed the results.

His method consists in holding down the queen by clamps of fine wire or mesh, or by any similar means, spreading her body open, and then by bringing the selected drone in the right position, and by gently squeezing the drone's abdomen causing the drone's organ to penetrate. This is practically the method taken up recently by the Southern Bee Culture Field Laboratory. There the queen is held 'in a glass tube from which the tip of her body protrudes. Then, following the idea of Harry H. Laidlaw, Jr., her body is held open by a fine horseshoe-shaped wire clip and then the copulation is completed by bringing the drone in the right position and gentle pressure. Of course, this has to be done under a microscope, or at least under a good magnifying glass. By the way, Mr. Laidlaw also had worked at this problem a number of years and had partial success in obtaining fertilization by spreading the queen open with a pair of small forceps and then bringing queen and drone together, simply by hand, without the use of any instruments of microscopes. Of course, it was a hit and miss process, but it was a step in the right direction.

And now if I may betray a secret, I am going to tel1 you that a Pennsylvania beekeeper, a beekeeper, not a scientist, is also working at the same problem. I do not mention his name, for he may be among those here present, and I could not point him out if he were here, for I have never met him personally. This is what he says, in substance: he is working with a simple hand method -- different from Dr. Watson's, and it is an easy way. He is going to try it out and will let me know the results.

Now, you know the great scientists, Dr. Phillips, Hambledon, Nolan, and a host of others have done great and invaluable work in the interest of apiculture. But when it comes to the finding of a shortcut and practical application of methods of apiculture, it is usually the ordinary beekeeper who comes to the fore with what later proves to be the most practical and generally adopted appliance or method. And thus, who knows, Mr. X. Y. Z.'s method of handmating may be the one which will be used by the ordinary beeman and the queenbreeders of the future. The laboratory methods have their value, for they show the way, and by their results prove or disprove the prior theories upon which this work of finding the ideal bee is based. But it will be a simplified, easy hand method that will finally be adopted in carrying out the findings of the laboratory method.

How, then about the future? How soon may we expect to be able to procure an unlimited supply of queens of the ideal bee, a NEW RACE OF BEES. for that it is going to be, quite unlike in size and general appearance from what we are accustomed to? Is this artificial fertilization of queens so important a step towards this end? Wankler had this question proposed to him, and he answered that it was important for scientific purposes in the production of new breeds, but not for practical purposes to the honey producing beekeeper. Still, if the honey producing beekeeper can produce more and better honey, with less work and better bees, he will be all in favor of the early achievement of the scientists' endeavors in breeding this ideal bee race. Some time ago I saw in a magazine an illustration of some students of apiculture building an anatomical model of the honey bee, of superheroic size. There was one just putting a wing in place, and from comparison with the student's figure I judged the wing to be about a yard long. Now imagine our scientists putting the ideal bee together. the long strong legs, the strong wings motored by a set of muscles like those of a hawk, eyes as sharp and farsighted as those of the eagle, the large honey sack, the long tongue of the butterfly, besides the metaphysical qualities of gentleness, resistance to climate and disease, and a lot of other things. There she stands: isn't she a beauty! All we have to do now 'is to turn on the current, and her motor will begin to hum, her propeller to whirl, and off she goes in quest of honey. Three cheers and a tiger, Well, when do you think you will see her? Not in your life time, perhaps not in a billion years. Remember, that ideal bee will have to be an entirely new race. Man cannot create, he can improve existing races, but he cannot produce anything which is a distinctly new creature. To improve on Joyce Kilmer: papers are written by fools like me, but only God can make a bee !  

posted by PLB

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