4 MONTANA EXPERIMENT STATION BULLETIN 425 
sures are poor or nonexistent. Only continuing and expanding re- 
search can solve the difficult problems. 
The crying entomological need, not only in Montana, but 
throughout the Great Plains Area, is for adequate methods of pre- 
dicting outbreaks of insects. Montana comes under the influence of 
a continental type of climate characterized by what are sometimes 
tremendous fluctuations in at least the more obvious climatic fac- 
tors. This is paralleled by and possibly causes great fluctuations in 
populations of harmful insects. If, for example, we take the most 
commonly injurious insects to the wheat plant, such insects as 
grasshoppers, pale western cutworms, army cutworms, wheat stem 
sawflies, Say's stink bugs, etc., we find that they are characteris- 
tically cyclic in their appearance, and the areas infested may vary 
from year to year or over a period of years. Further, as is pointed 
out in the discussion of the potato psyllid later in this report, some 
insects may be sufficiently abundant in one area from year to 
year to warrant control recommendations every year. The same 
insect in another area may be present in injurious numbers only 
rarely, at times which are now unpredictable, making these con- 
tinuing control recommendations undesirable. It should be the re- 
sponsibility of the entomologist not only to give information as to 
when to control insects, but equally as much to inform those affect- 
ed when not to apply control measures. A start in this direction has 
been made with grasshoppers and pale western cutworms, but pre- 
diction methods are not available for the great majority of the 
harmful species. This line of investigation would seem to be one 
of the very productive lines for future research. To function best, 
it should not be limited in scope to any artificial boundary such as 
a state or district line. If the whole region is affected by attacks of 
insects with these cyclic characteristics, the best and most compre- 
hensive work can be done only when the whole region is the labor- 
atory for study and an adequate personnel is developed to study 
this one problem, the problem of cyclic occurrence of insects. 
In the following pages are given details on the cooperative 
control work, with the Bureau of Entomology and Plant Quaran- 
tine, in the control of grasshoppers, the status of other economic 
insects in the State, notes on new pests, and the report of the bee 
inspection work for the past biennium for Montana. 
MAJOR INSECT CONTROL PROBLEMS 
GRASSHOPPER CONTROL, 1943-44 
The influence of the heavy migration of the lesser migratory 
locust (Melanoplus mexicanus) which occurred in July, 1938, had 
run its course by 1943. Scattered areas of threatening and severe 
populations existed in the State, but there was apparently little 
