120 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



keepers have to bear. The sympathy of those interested in 

 promoting beekeeping cannot help but be aroused when an 

 appeal is received from a practical apiarist, with some forty 

 colonies of bees, who, in a brief, pointed letter, seeks assistance, 

 explaining that "an orchard near me was sprayed Saturday, 

 May 15, 1915, with some trees in full bloom. Now I have my 

 bees all dying." The letter was written two days after the trees 

 were sprayed. 



Complaints from Massachusetts of Damages alleged as 

 Result of Indiscriminate or Injudicious Spraying. 



From year to year there are increasing losses of bees alleged 

 to be due to poison derived from spray materials. This is often 

 coupled with suspected brood diseases of bees, and hence is 

 constantly coming to the attention of the inspectors. 



The inspector's policy has usually been to presume first that 

 a certain proportion of the complaints result from an inade- 

 quate understanding of the brood diseases. Yet, in some 

 instances, losses and depletion of colonies are reported without 

 the brood of the colonies being affected. On the contrary, the 

 adult bees (which in America are not considered subject to 

 disease now recognized, excepting paralysis and dysentery) are 

 killed in numbers. Such reports must then be regarded as the 

 result of disaster other than that from brood diseases, especially 

 as the symptoms correspond with those repeatedly mentioned 

 in cases of supposed poisoning. Characteristic of the symptoms 

 and conditions prevailing in regions where alleged poisoning 

 occurs is a quotation from a letter (June, 1914, Gleasondale) : — 



The noticeable thing about my bees is that for some reason or other 

 they have dwindled in nmnbers and have no inclinations to swarm. Others 

 in my neighborhood have the same experience, attributing it to poison 

 from spraying. 



Brood disease might also be inferred from such a statement 

 by itself, but the context usually is as follows : — 



About the 15th of May [North Andover] I noticed the ground in front 

 of one of my colonies covered with dead and dying bees. Upon examina- 

 tion I found some of the bees were alive; now and then one would try to 



