DIVISION OF ENTOMOLOGY. 149 



tion witli persons in charge of other branches of scientific work under 

 the Government, that these annual expositions are and will continue 

 to be serious liindrances to the specific work appropriated for by 

 Congress, so long as special funds for the preparation of exhibits are 

 not sufficiently large to enable the employment of additional special- 

 ists for exposition purposes alone. The work of this office and of 

 other offices is interrupted every year by the necessity of preparing 

 such exhibits, and time is spent for this purpose which is intended 

 by the Government, under direction of Congress, for entirely different 

 purposes. 



(,y) WORK IN APICULTURE. 



Further comparative tests have been made of Carniolan, Italian, 

 and Cj'prian bees, with crosses of the first and last. Practical tests 

 of methods employed in rearing queen bees have been made, and origi- 

 nal devices facilitating production of queens have been develoj)ed. 

 Successful experiments in the sending of queen bees by mail have 

 been made, and additional data concerning honey-producing plants 

 have been collected. The correspondence in this branch of the work 

 has been constant and extensive. 



PROPOSED WORK FOR THE FISCAL YEAR 1902. 



Work for the fiscal year 1902, which at the date of this writing is 

 already well under way, will be carried on in the same directions as 

 the work during the past fiscal year. Investigation of the codling 

 moth in the Northwest, as authorized by Congress, will be continued. 

 The work against the Mexican cotton-boll weevil in Texas will be 

 carried on through the whole year, one or more agents being employed 

 specially for the purpose. The South African grasshopper fungus 

 will receive a severe practical test, and the native diseases of Western 

 species will also be studied. The year promises to be one of very 

 considerable injury from different species of grasshoppers, and a 

 study of the conditions under which these abnormally numerous local 

 swarms have develoj)ed will be made by an expert. The search for 

 the original home and natural enemies of the San Jose scale will be 

 continued in Oriental regions by one of the assistants. An investi- 

 gation will be made, at the request of the Cuban government, into 

 damage done by insects to the cocoa palm in the jjrovince of Santiago, 

 and an assistant has already been sent to the island for tliat purpose. 

 Extensive experimental work with remedies will be continued, and 

 the general investigations of insects injurious to garden and field 

 crojjs and to shade and forest trees will also be continued. The 

 extreme interest which is being taken in the mosquito question by 

 many communities indicates that much advisory work must be done 

 by this office, and experts will be sent from time to time to such com- 

 munities to point out the best methods of procedure, while it is hojDed 

 that the Bureau of Soils will continue to cooperate in tlie work of 

 reclaiming mosquito-breeding swamp tracts. 



In apiculture, owing to the fact that Congress has for the first time 

 made a specific appropriation for this work, the Division will under- 

 take the importation and distribution of a limited number of Italian, 

 Carniolan, and Cyprian queen bees, also the breeding of select queens 

 of these races and various crosses between them, for distribution and 

 comparative tests in different parts of the country, especially by the 

 State agricultural experiment stations. The study of honey-produc- 

 ing plants will be continued, and maps will be prepared showing the 

 distribution of the most important. Finally, practical tests of various 



