INSTITUTE AND COLLEGE, PUSA, FOR 1913-14. 73 



Lac-culture in that State; he obtained Kusumb brood-lac 

 from Rewah, selected the localities in Karauli where work 

 was to be commenced and started inoculation of the trees 

 selected. After doing this Mr. Misra visited Sind to 

 obtain Babul brood-lac and to study the methods of pro- 

 pagation practised in that district. Collection of Lac 

 specimens by the Forest Officers continued throughout the 

 year, the series being, however, now completed for some 

 districts; 42 parcels were sent out and 29 parcels were 

 received. 



In the provinces little lac-work seems to be done. In 

 the Central Provinces the inoculation done in June 1912 

 proved unsuccessful and this was therefore repeated in 

 October 1913, but the insects did not thrive well. 



Bees. — At Pusa the last of the imported Italian queens 

 died in July 1913. At that time there were two colonies 

 headed by queens reared at Pusa and in August a third 

 queen was reared and fertilized, but in the course of the 

 year all the three queens failed and the bees died out. The 

 proper fertilization of the queens seems to be at present the 

 main difficulty in establishing these bees in the Plains; the 

 workers seem to do well and it is comparatively easy to 

 rear new queens as required, but these are usually snapped 

 up by insectivorous birds during their marriage-flight or, 

 if they survive this, fertilization does not seem to have been 

 sufficiently thorough, as after a few months they commence 

 to produce drone-brood only. Experiments have been con- 

 tinued with the Indian Bee (Apis indica) and a mill for 

 preparing foundation-wax for this bee has been procured, 

 as have also queen-excluders of special size, so that these 

 bees can now be kept in bar- frame hives under modern 

 conditions. A Bulletin on Bee-keeping has been prepared 

 and submitted for publication. As Apiculture in the 

 Plains is still in an experimental stage no regular course of 

 instruction in Bee-keeping can be given, but Entomological 

 Students and interested Visitors have been given such 

 information as they required. 



