ECONOMIC ZOOLOGY — ENTOMOLOGY. 457 



previously noted (E. S. R., 14, p. 890), gives information needed by those about 

 to take up bee l^eeping. 



Results of the cooperative experiments on the control of swarming', 

 M. Pkttit (Ann. Rpt. Ontario Agr. and Expt. Union, 32 (1910), pp. 48-53).— 

 A brief report of experiments. 



A bee disease due to a protozoal parasite (Nosema apis), H. B. Fantham 

 and Annie Porter (Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1911, III, pp. 625, 626).— The 

 authors record the discovery of the occurrence of N. apis among bees in Cam- 

 bridgeshire and Hertfordshire. Some of the infected combs were brown in 

 color instead of tlie normal yellow, while the infected bees suffered from a 

 sort of di*y dysentery which rapidly proved fatal. Spores of N. apis fed in 

 honey proved fatal to healthy hive-bees, mason-bees, and wasps, as did the 

 placing of hive-bees dead of the disease among healthy hive and mason-bees 

 and wasps, and tlie direct contamination of healthy bees with infected fecal 

 matter. The virulence of the parasite appeared to vary in bees at different 

 times of the year and in different localities. Bad seasons are usually followed 

 by increase of disease. Some bees became chronics, forming reservoirs of 

 spores and so acting as parasite-carriers. In the authors' opinion this parasite 

 has been responsible for much of the bee disease recorded in England since 190(3. 



Other parasites found in bees, chiefly in the gut, include several species of 

 gregarines, a flagellate apparently belonging to the genus Crithidia, a new 

 amoeba (Entamoeba apis) very like E. coli of the human intestine, a spirochete, 

 and various fungi. 



Concerning' the relation of food to reproductive activity and longevity in 

 certain hymenopterous parasites, S. B. Doten (Nevada Sta. Bui. 78, pp. 30, 

 pis. 10). — In this paper the author presents (1) an account of a method of 

 feeding and confining certain small parasitic hymenopters and of observing 

 copulation and oviposition in these species; (2) the manner of recording and 

 grouping these observations; (3) methods of photographing some phases of the 

 feeding and oviposition of these species, together with a series of photogi-aphs 

 showing the oviposition and feeding in Pteromalus, Meraporus, and Micro- 

 bracon. 



The parasites under observation were kept in glass tubes 80 by 16 mm., 

 rounded at one end, open at the other. To the open end similar tubes were 

 attached with adhesive plaster. In the top arch of one tube there was placed 

 a single small drop of honey water resting on the surface of a little patch of 

 beeswax melted to the surface of the glass, the air in the tube being kept moist 

 by a bit of blotting paper wet in distilled water. The tubes were all kept at 

 a temperature between 70° and 75° ; hence the observations recorded are A^alid 

 only for those average temperatures. The photographs were made by flash 

 light with explosive flash powder. This was put up in gelatine capsules for 

 immediate use and exploded by electricity. The camera consisted of a wooden 

 box screwed to the wall in an upright position and focusing was done by the 

 light of a tungsten incandescent bulb. 



Six species of parasites were studied. The first is an apparently undescribed 

 native species of Meraporus that parasitizes the codling moth, as many as 16 

 having been bred from a single codling moth pupa. The codling moth caterpil- 

 lars appear to die from the effects of ovipositor thrusts ; such thrusts are never 

 or at least very rarely accompanied by true oviposition. The author has ob- 

 served nothing, however, which would go to prove that these thrusts were ac- 

 companied by the injection of such a poison as Microhracon juglandis injects 

 when it stings the caterpillars of Ephestia Icueliniella. Pieris rapw chrysalids 

 punctured in this way invariably died later. " In not a single instance out of 

 scores punctured by Meraporus females did maggots of Meraporus develop 



