102 ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF ONTARIO. 



Mr. Riley said it was true that this was not only an English, but a European 

 practice. 



Mr. Coquillett's paper, entitled, " Hydrocyanic Acid Gas as an Insecticide," was 

 read by the Secretary. The paper consisted of an historical review of the use of this 

 gas in California, together with an account of the methods in use at the present time and 

 some slight consideration of its effect upon different insects. The cost of fumigating a 

 tree varies from 5c. to $1, and even at the latter rate figures were produced to show that 

 it is economical. 



ON ARSENICAL SPRAYING OF FRUIT TREES WHILE IN BLOSSOM. 

 By J. A. LiNTNER, Albany, N, Y. 



The long-mooted question : Are honey bees poisoned by arsenical spraying 1 is still 

 an unsettled one. There are those who claim that a great mortality among bees is the 

 result of their visiting blossoms that have been sprayed with Paris green, while others 

 hold that the mortality so frequently observed at this time is ascribable to other causes, 

 and that the arsenic would not reach the nectar of blossoms, and, being an insoluble 

 substance, could not affect the bees or be communicated to the honey. This latter view 

 has been entertained by some of our best botanists. The pollen, however, might contain 

 arsenic and thus become poisonous, not only to the bees visiting the blossoms, but also to 

 the nearly-matured, chyme-fed larvae, to whom it might be conveyed. 



In behalf of a committee appointed by the Association of Economic Entomologists 

 to investigate the matter. Prof. F. M. Webster, of the Agricultural Experiment Station 

 of Ohio, chairman of the committee, has receutly reported progress in the investigations 

 undertaken, to the following effect : He had experimented with a hive of bees placed 

 underneath a sprayed plum tree wholly inclosed with a tine netting. Within two days 

 thereafter a large nnmber of dead bees were taken up from the cloth with which the 

 ground had been covered. Without much doubt, most of these had been killed in their 

 efforts to escape from their confinement. Examination of the bodies of the dead insects 

 before washing and after they had been washed, to remove any arsenic that had been 

 attached to their surface from contact with the sprayed blossoms, gave to the examining 

 chemist the presence of arsenic. In another experiment made, hives of bees were placed 

 under sprayed trees, but without any enclosing net These also gave dead bees with 

 arsenic upon them, but in much smaller numbers.* The experiments were not deemed 

 conclusive by Prof. Webster, and it is intended to continue them another year. 



That the bodies of crushed bees that had visited blossoms sprayed with arsenic 

 should disclose to chemical tests the presence of arsenic is not at all strange. Even an 

 amraoniacal bath could not have removed every trace of arsenic from the surface of their 

 bodies. 



Prof. A. J. Cook, the distinguished apiarist of the Michigan State Agricultural 

 College, makes the positive assertion that honey bees are killed in large numbers through 

 the arsenical spraying of fruit trees in blossom, but he has not proven the assertion. 

 Experiments instituted by him, in which bees fed on sweetened water poisoned by 

 arsenic — 1 pound to 200 gallons — were killed, are claimed by him as decisive upon the 

 question under consideration. How entirely unwarranted the conclusion ! The experi- 

 ment had no bearing upon the question at issue. No one could have doubted that imbib- 

 ing strongly poisoned syrup would be fatal to honey bees. Furthermore, in his experi- 

 ment (see Report of the Michigan Board of Agriculture for 1891) the bees were fed in 

 his laboratory, within a small cage. Bees are known to die very soon in confinement, 

 ^ven without an arsenical diet. 



A simple method can be resorted to, by which the question could be definitely and 

 effectually settled. It is this : Confine a hive of healthy bees to blossoms sprayed with 

 Paris green, and when death speedily follows, have examination of their stomachs made 



* It is possible that these bees may have been caught and killed by some of the predaceous insects, 

 -which are known to lie in w»it among or near blossoms, whence they suddenly seize the bees and suck out 

 their _;'?<i'ccs, such as the bee-slayer, Phymata erosa, and several 'of the " robber flies " or Asilidse, of which 

 Prof. A. J. Cook records six species having this habit. 



