104 MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS ON APICULTUEE. 
paper. The moth does not materially damage strong, healthy 
colonies, but is a menace only to persons who are inattentive to their 
bees or who are careless, leaving empty combs about their hives and 
bee yards, and who fail to recognize and to treat bee diseases. 
Combs not in use or not covered by bees should be fumigated with 
carbon bisulphid and sealed in tight boxes for storage. 
DAMAGE TO THE BEE-KEEPIXG INDUSTRY BY THE GIPSY MOTH (PORTHE- 
TRIA DISPAR) AND BROWX-TAIL MOTH (EUPROCTIS CHRYSORRHCEa) . 
Xumerous complaints came from eastern Massachusetts, where 
gipsy and brown-tail moths are doing tremendous damage to forest 
and shade trees, that they were causing a loss to the apiarist as well. 
Damage is done both directly to the bees and indirectly to the honey 
flora. 
From Cliftondale. Essex County, one bee keeper says that they 
have bothered during June and July by trying to crawl in at the 
entrance of his hives. Another speaks of the caterpillars having 
eaten up all the plants which the bees commonly forage upon, save 
golden-rod and burdock, and have thus caused a loss of his bees. 
Failure of his honey crop in 1906 is attributed to severe ravages of 
gipsy and brown-tail moths. The basswood of Xew England was 
formerly a good honey producer and could be counted upon for a 
crop, is a report from Melrose, but since the brown-tail and gipsy 
moths defoliated the trees it can no longer yield much. A Medford 
bee keeper contributes this interesting note: 
Gipsy and brown tails have so spoiled the fruit bloom, an important factor 
in spring building, that colonies fail to become sufficiently strong for the har- 
vest. The willow, maple, and elm, early pollen yielders, have also suffered from 
the moths, which has consequently damaged bee keeping. 
Another peculiar case is reported from Cliftondale. Brown-tail 
and gipsy moths were so thick on the trees when a number of swarms 
came out that the bees did not stay near the apiary. 
The trees were covered with them so that the bees would not stay to be 
hived. * * * In regard to the honey plants, the moths destroyed all the blos- 
soms on the fruit trees and wild plants. Every place was covered with them 
each year from 1904 to 1906 ; the result is that there was no honey this year 
(1906), owing to so many of the fruit trees and honey plants being destroyed 
by the pest. 
BEE DISEASES. 
This subject has already been treated with some detail in a former 
paper. 6 Since the appearance of that paper, however, the extent of 
diseases and the damage they are doing have become more fully real- 
a Gates, Burton X. 190S. Bee Diseases in Massachusetts. Bui. No. 75, Part 
III, Bureau of Entomology ; Bui. 124, Mass. Agr. Exp. Station. 
& Ibid, pp. 23-32 ; also Bui. No. 124, Agr. Exp. Station, Amherst, Mass. 
