128 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



European foul brood are in a measure apart from alleged losses 

 from poison. Practical beekeepers should recognize the point, 

 emphasized elsewhere, namely, that it is thought the brood is 

 seldom if ever affected by . poisons. It is, as the description 

 above indicates, the adult bees which are killed by the thou- 

 sands. 



During 1914 the bee journals contained numerous reports 

 concerning the alleged damage to beekeeping through indis- 

 criminate and improper spraying. This was particularly true 

 of Colorado. . "The beekeepers of Colorado, and especially those 

 located within the fruit belts and on the western slope, have 

 been heavy losers this year on account of the poisoning of 

 bees and larvae with spray poisons." ^ 



The General Assembly of Colorado has recently passed a 

 law prohibiting the spraying of fruit trees "while in full bloom," 

 but this has not as yet been sufficient protection to the bee- 

 keepers. 



The alleged situation in Colorado has been reported by 

 0. C. Skinner of Montrose, speaker of the House of Repre- 

 sentatives of Colorado, and read before the Montrose Bee- 

 keepers' Association.^ 



The result is that the beekeepers in the large fruit-growing sections 

 have been almost put out of business, some having not only lost all the 

 honey crop, and failed entirely on increase, but also lost many stands of 

 bees from dwindUng. 



Around Montrose the loss was very heavy, because there is a lot of red 

 clover used as a cover crop there. The spray mixture falls on the blossoms 

 of the clover; and while it is generally supposed that the bees do not 

 work extensively on red clover, yet in the season of 1914 they worked 

 enough to make the honey business almost a failure in that locality. It 

 is suggested that the year 1914 was conducive to the small growth of the 

 flower of red clover, making it easily worked . . . , and therefore more to 

 be dreaded than ordinary years, but that is not proven.^ 



. . . Among the orchardists who were driven from the orchards of that 

 locality are J. C. Mathews, who had to move two apiaries, J. J. Corbut, 

 Will Corbut, A. B. Clement and 0. C. Skinner; while the Allen Brothers 

 and J. G. Brown held their bees in the orchards, and especially in the 

 case of the former, an entire loss of crop and a heavy loss of bees re- 

 sulted. . . . 



' "Gleanings in Bee Culture," Vol. 43, p. C, January 1, 1915. 



' "The red clover grown under irrigation has a very short corolla tube, so that the bees work 

 on it much." (Letter, Wesley Foster, April 8, 1915.) 



