140 DDT — ^Killer of Killers 



want anything to happen to the produaion of this deleaable 

 confection. But of even greater importance is the role of 

 the bee in the pollination of fruits, as mentioned above. It 

 is easy to understand, therefore, why many orchardists be- 

 came worried when DDT first came into use. What's to be 

 gained if you kill off insects that attack the trees and at the 

 same time kill the bees that are so essential for pollination? 

 You can't blame our fruit growers for being worried, for 

 laboratory tests showed that DDT will kill bees. 



Yet, like many another dire prediaion, the fear that 

 DDT used on fruit and field crops would have a disastrous 

 effect on bees has been proved to be unfounded. Actually, 

 DDT is less toxic to bees than the arsenic sprays that have 

 been used for many years. Thus, the substitution of DDT 

 for arsenicals is actually to the beekeepers' advantage. But 

 the case for DDT is even much stronger than that. 



Many large-scale experiments have been carried out in 

 which DDT was dusted on fields adjacent to colonies of 

 honeybees. It was found that the number of dead bees was 

 no greater than normal. It is true that very few bees will be 

 found in the treated fields for several days after the applica- 

 tion of DDT, but they soon return in normal numbers. Ap- 

 parently, the DDT merely repels them for some time. This 

 should not be interpreted to mean that DDT does not kill 

 bees, for it certainly does. If bees are actually hit by a DDT 

 spray or dust, they will, in all probability, be killed. But in 

 the concentrations used in most agricultural applications, 

 there is not likely to be enough of a residual deposit to cause 

 the death of bees that later enter the treated area. This has 

 been verified by examining the dead bees around the hives. 



Insects that come in contact with residual DDT de- 

 posits do not die immediately. Bees, for example, would 



