98 SCIENTIFIC REPORTS OF THE AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH 



IV. Bees, Lac and Silk. 



Bees. The work with the local variety of the Indian 

 Bee (Apis indica) has been continued. There have been 

 numerous inquiries on this subject during the year from 

 residents in all parts of India. Improved hives have been 

 prepared locally and supplied to various correspondents. 

 Two show-cases, illustrative of bee-keeping, were prepared 

 and supplied to the Agricultural Association, Muzaffarpur. 



A Bengali Bulletin on Bee-keeping was published during 

 the year and the first edition has already been nearly sold 

 out. 



A paper on " Bee-keeping in India" was read by Mr. 

 C. C. Ghosh at the Third Entomological Meeting. 



Lac. The emergence of lac larvse took place at Pusa 

 on 14th October, 1918, and 20th June, 1919. A small 

 quantity of her (Zizyphus jujuba) brood-lac was obtained 

 from Malda, Bengal, to place on the trees. The October 

 crop was fairly good but the June crop was poor, having 

 been adversely affected by the unusually hot weather during 

 May. 



Two students were trained in lac-culture, and brood-lac 

 was supplied to various applicants. 



A note on lac-culture was prepared and read by Mr. 

 C. S. Misra at the Third Entomological Meeting, and in 

 April Mr. Misra attended the Meeting of the Board of 

 Forestry where the question of developing the Lac Industry 

 in India was discussed. 



Silk. The Sericultural establishment is still on a tem- 

 porary footing which has been extended up to 31st March, 

 1920. In the meantime work is being continued with the 

 twenty multivoltine mongrel races of mulberry silkworms 

 which have been established by crossing univoltine and 

 multivoltine races. In these mongrel crosses it has been 

 noticed that the yield of silk from the first generation of 

 crosses is always better than that in later generations, 

 which seem to deteriorate gradually. Attempts are being 

 made to prevent this deterioration by the infusion of new 

 blood in the mongrel races. We appear to have succeeded 



