Apis Americana

The possibility of ever developing a bee to a point where it may be called “Apis Americana” and may scientifically take its place alongside the others, depends to a great extent on whether we can do with bees what has been done with many other kinds of stock. Horses and cattle have been varied largely in the past century, pigs still more, while various small animals and birds, such as dogs and domestic poultry, have been completely transformed in a comparatively short number of generations and—most important of all— the characteristics that have been thus acquired have been transmitted, where the strain is properly mated. Most of the writers of textbooks on bees cite the above examples and draw the conclusion that the same work with bees will give us an insect capable of gathering more honey, of withstanding disease better, and of even possessing less desire to swarm.

How far is this conclusion justified?

The characteristics which we have succeeded in modifying in domestic animals have been nearly all those of form, or color, or size. From some primitive dog we have produced St. Bernhards, mastiffs, terriers and Pekinese. From some primitive cattle we have obtained Jerseys, Holsteins and Herefords, and from some wild pig we bred alike Chester Whites, Yorkshires and Durocs, and so on. We have never, however, succeeded in changing the instincts or habits of any of these creatures to any extent. The Pekinese has just the same desire to sniff at a fence post as the Airedale and the White Leghorn has just about the same personal tastes and fancies as a Rhode Island Red. In cattle, one of the dominant instincts is to remember the places where good pasture is to be found; the most highly-bred and specialized cow, in captivity, will remember the corn patch she broke into a couple days ago and will break the fence down again if you let her out. Why not try to breed a cow that will respect your neighbor’s property?

The above question is just about as sensible, really, as asking why we cannot breed a bee that will not swarm. Swarming is just as deeply rooted an instinct as the cow’s instinct to find the corn patch, and it persists through all changes in form or color.

If we are going to attempt to do with bees what has been done with other livestock, we must try to breed a larger bee, or a bee with a long tongue (which some claim to have done), or a bee with distinctive markings or other distinctions of size or shape, and until we can control mating how is such a thing possible?

“Qualities of Hybrids are not fixed.” I quote from your editorial, and here surely is the explanation: Suppose that instead of the careful selection that goes on in cattle breeding, that there were merely general matings of individuals by guesswork, would not the same results be apparent in cattle? The only instances where any progress could be possible in such circumstances would be where a man kept a herd, all of the same breed and gave them very good food and care, which is exactly the extent of the progress we have made with bees. Where Italians, or some other race are in a location where they can be kept pure, and given the best of care, they prosper; but their physical characteristics do not become modified and the original instincts of the insect are absolutely unchanged.

American Bee Journal  December 1922

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