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The Automobile and Paved Roads 
Fast-traveling automobiles kill large numbers of pollinating insects. 
For every slow, awkward female bumblebee killed in the spring there is one 
less nest of pollinating insects later in the year. Improved, well-kept 
roads offer little refuge for wild pollinating insects. 
Pickles, W. 
1942. Animal mortality on three miles of Yorkshire roads. 
Ecol. 11: 37-43. 
Jour. Anim. 
p. 38: As with the Coleoptera, the Hymenoptera, chiefly bees, 
have met their deaths either by being crushed by the wheels of the 
vehicles, or in the manner indicated above. 
p. 40: A busy road passing through a country district has 
a big effect on the animal life in its vicinity. 
Throughout the year 1938, the total number of animals [insects] 
killed on the 3 miles of road under observation was 687... This is 
229 per mile; of which 113.3 were Hymenoptera. 
pp. 41-42: Altogether, there were 42 different species of 
animals killed on the reads. [The Hymenoptera included were as follows:] 
Bombus terrestris L. 
B. lapidarius L. 
B, rauscorum L. 
B, agrorum F. 
B. ruderatus F. 
Apis mellifera L. 
Colletes succinata L, 
Andrena armata Gmel . 
Vespula vulgaris L. 
V. germanica F. 
Poisoning from Insecticides 
Hundreds of colonies of honeybees are killed each year by arsenical 
sprays and dusts. Often the losses occur long after the insecticides have 
been applied, when brood is fed stored poisoned pollen. Under such condi- 
tions bees gradually dwindle and die, and often the owner is not aware of 
the true cause. 
At one time poisoning of honeybees was confined largely to the fruit- 
blossoming period, when bees took poison from open blossoms, but now the 
poisoning continues throughout most the summer because many cover sprays 
are applied to control injurious insects, particularly the codling moth. 
Sprays and dusts falling on cover crops in orchards kill both honeybees and 
native bees. 
From the knowledge of the habits of wild pollinating insects and the 
fact that the queens obtain their food directly from flowers, they would 
appear to be even more susceptible to insecticides than honeybees, since the 
queen's food is not nectar and pollen but royal jelly. Brittain made obser- 
vations on this point, but came to no definite conclusions as to the over-all 
