62 MASS. EXPERIMENT STATION BULLETIN 239 



or three weeks, then being bhiekish with the wing covers, tlie legs and the 

 under side of the abdomen mostly deep reddish. 



There is one brood a year. The insect passes the late summer, fall, winter 

 and spring as a beetle and can live under the winter flood. In the fall and 

 spring the beetles hide in the trash under the vines or burrow a little in the 

 sand on cold windy days, coming out only in warm sunny weather. When 

 active they are easih' swept from the vines with an insect net. When dis- 

 turbed they either drop to the ground and play possum or fly off a few feet. 

 They start mating toward the first of June. 



The beetles begin to lay eggs when the first blossom buds show pink and 

 continue to do so through most of June. Some females lay thirty-nine, but 

 they average about twenty. Only one egg is laid in a bud, the beetle pushing 

 it with her ovipositor into a hole made with her snout. It usually is placed 

 imiong the stamens near the bases of the anthers (fig. .56). It is smooth, glist- 

 ening, oblong-ovoid, pale yellowish, and nearly a fiftieth of an inch long. 

 It hatches in three to nine davs. 



The Grub. 



The normal hatching period is from about June 10 to July 1. The grubs 

 develop and pupate in the blossom buds. They mature in ten to fourteen days. 

 The mature grub (fig. 57) is whitish and has a yellowish head but no legs. 

 It is about a ninth of an inch long. 



The Pupa. 



This (fig. 58) is about an eleventh of an inch long and pale yellow at first 

 but it finally turns brown. The legs, wing pads and snout lie tightly against 

 the body. This stage lasts about six days. When the beetle emerges it eats 

 its way out of the bud near the calyx lobes. The beetles usually come out 

 mostly during the first half of July. 



Treatment. 



Ordinary late holding of the winter flood fails to reduce this pest nuich. A 

 complete flowage for two days about June 1 is effective, especially if 2 gal- 

 lons of kerosene for each acre of bog is poured onto the water along the 

 windward side soon after the vines are covered. 



The beetles can be killed readily with a spray of Bordeaux mixture made 

 up of 10 pounds of stone lime and 6 pounds of copper sulfate to 100 gallons 

 of water, with 6 pounds of calcium arsenate and 4 pounds of fish-oil soap 

 added. It should be used at the rate of 400 gallons to the acre, preferably in 

 the spring after the new growth of the vines starts but before the beetles lay 

 eggs. This is between May 20 and June 1 most years. It may be used to kill 

 the beetles of the new brood at any time from their first appearance till mid- 

 August, but it should be applied as soon as they ai)pear. 



