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72 



SEVENTH ANNUAL. REPORT OF THE 



"TREE SPRAYING KILLS BEES." 



"Thousands of Insect Honey Hunters 

 Die from Sipping Poison." 



Tree spraying for the San Jose Scale 

 .now being conducted at the instance 

 of the State Department of Agriculture 

 has aroused the displeasure of the 

 keepers of bees in the vicinity of Nor- 

 ristown, owing to the havoc it has 

 created by killing thousands of these 

 honey gatherers. Probably the heaviv 

 est loser is John C. Detwiler in White- 

 marsh who says that his bees have 

 died iby the thousands since the trees 

 in the neighborhood have been sprayed. 



Mr. Detwiler says: "Bees require 

 large quantities of water, especially at 

 this season, and will obtain it from al- 

 most any blossom or wherever possible. 

 This water is then mixed with the pol- 

 len in the process of keeping the hive." 



"At present bees are feasting upon 

 the opening blossoms, and almost as 

 soon as they sip therefrom the trees 

 of which have been sprayed for the 

 extirpation of the San Jose Scale, they 

 become affected by the poisonous liquid 

 and speedily die." 



That seems to be pretty straight be- 

 cause it gives Mr. Detwiler's name and 

 address. 



I replied to that by an article enti- 

 tled: 



"BEES AND TREE SPRAYING." 



State Zoologist Says Sulphur Wash 

 Kill.' Scale But Not the Insects. 



My attention has been called to a 

 newspaper article entitled "Tree Spray- 

 ing Kills Bees," and I ibeg to write you 

 concerning the error in this, as it is an 

 injustice to the men who wish to save 

 their trees from the terrible San Jose 

 Scale. In the first place, the spray for 

 the San Jose Scale must be applied be- 

 fore the trees are in blossom, and our 

 inspectors and demonstrators have 

 never sprayed any trees while in blos- 

 som in order to kill any scale insects, 

 and therefore there would be no honey 

 bees around the trees sprayed for San 

 Jose Scale at the time the spraying 

 was done. The lime-sulphur wash is 

 caustic, but is not a "poisonous liquid." 

 Bees could not be induced to sip it, 

 and if they should do so they would 

 not be killed by it as they would 

 by an arsenical poison. 



The bees around Norristown, as else- 

 where in this state, may be dying from 



foul brood or another trouble, some- 

 times called "spring dwindling," but 

 they certainly are not killed from the 

 effect of any spray used or recom- 

 mended by this office for San Jose 

 Scale. 



May I take this occasion also to call 

 the attention of the public to the fact 

 that we do not spray blossoms for any 

 pest known? In other words, no trees 

 should be sprayed while in blossom. 

 Spraying at such time with arsenical 

 poison may have the effect of killing 

 bees, but the lime-sulphur wash is not 

 an arsenical poison, and is not sprayed 

 while the trees are in blossom, and 

 therefore bees are not killed by any 

 spray used for this purpose." 



I want that to go on record. "We 

 don't recommend spraying of blos- 

 soms of any kind at any time when in 

 bloom for any pest whatever. It is 

 wrong horticultural practice. The man 

 who has trees in .bloom and has an 

 ounce of sense will not spray his trees 

 while in bloom. That is not proper. 

 That would injure his fruits. That is 

 a cheap and wholesale method of thin- 

 ning it down. It is entirely apart from 

 the subject of bees. It would be inju- 

 rious to fruit to spray in bloom. 



If the trees be sprayed when they are 

 not in bloom, either before or after 

 blossom, I don't care how severe arsen- 

 ical poison you use that will not kill 

 the bees. The only way to kill them 

 would be to get poison into the blos- 

 soms. 



Now, concerning the impression that 

 bees are killed 'by spraying, nothing 

 could be more erroneous. As a rem- 

 edy ifor the San Jose Scale fruit grow- 

 ers are using either the oils or caustic 

 washes, such as the lime-sulphur wash, 

 a very simple material, but when it is 

 combined it makes a different com- 

 pound altogether. It is entirely 

 a different subsance from either 

 of the two original ingredients. It is 

 just like water. Water is entirely dif- 

 ferent from hydrogen and nitrogen, al- 

 though they combine to make the prod- 

 uct known as water. So in the lime- 

 sulphur wash, after it is boiled it is 

 quite different. 



In spraying with oils the bees would 

 not touch the oily solutions. You know 

 if you put a little piece of oiled paper 

 or cloth covered with oil near a hive 

 the bees will avoid that. If the trees, 

 were spread with oils the bees would 

 avoid them. And as to the lime-sul- 

 phur wash compounds, we have had a 



