426 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1962 



Insect products. — Certain insects are of benefit to man by their 

 direct production of materials which serve as his food, or from which 

 he can manufacture marketable products. 



The honey bees produce some 250 million pounds of valuable and 

 nutritious food each year m the form of honey. They also produce 

 several million pounds of wax which is used in a great variety of 

 industries, including both wartime and peacetime products. Wax is 

 used, for instance, in the sealing and coating of shells, for ignition 

 apparatus, in the manufacture of cosmetics, in candles for religious 

 purposes, in dental supplies, in pharmaceutical salves, in carbon paper, 

 in confections, in printers' ink, in engravers' wax, and in the lubrica- 

 tion of dies for drawing sheet-metal tubes and cylinders. 



In the Orient a pure white wax is produced by scale insects of 

 the genus Ericerus^ and in the semiarid regions of Mexico and the 

 southwestern United States wax is produced by scale insects of the 

 genus T achardiella. 



Other commercial products of lesser importance or monetary value 

 are produced by other scale insects. Notable are the lac insects, which 

 occur in many of the tropical and subtropical countries such as Cey- 

 lon, Formosa, India, the East Indies, and the Philippine Islands. 

 These insects encase their bodies with a secretion which encrusts the 

 limbs and twigs of trees upon which they live with a resinous deposit 

 one-fourth to one-half inch thick. This substance is melted, refined, 

 and placed on the market as shellac and is also used extensively in the 

 manufacture of paints and varnishes. 



Certain other scale insects known as cochineal insects are common 

 on cacti in Mexico. Their bodies are collected, dried, and used by 

 the native Indians for the preparation of a crimson or vermilion dye. 

 In the 19th century a cochineal manufacturing industry was estab- 

 lished in the Canary Islands where it flourished until 1875. 



Insects as food. — Indirectly, insects are of great importance to the 

 food supply of man the world over, as they supply the basic or initial 

 food materials that are transformed into the bodies of food animals, 

 especially birds and fishes, Avhose flesh later finds its way to our tables. 

 These insects are as much a part of the food chain for fish and fowl 

 as corn is a part of the food chain for the bacon, ham, or beef that 

 we eat. 



Wliile the value and acceptability of the bodies of insects as food 

 for man might be questioned, there are many instances where they 

 have been or are being used. Our close neighbors, the people of 

 Mexico, utilize several types of insects as food. The larval stage of 

 a large hesperid skipper which lives in the maguey or century plant 

 may be purchased alive in the markets in lots of 10 or 12, tied in a 

 small sack made from the thin membrane of the maguey plant, or 

 they may be purchased in cans put up by commercial canning com- 



