FRUIT BLOSSOMS 
389 
is difficult to obtain, since the rainfall is 
light and the rivers and ponds dry up in 
summer. 
SYMPTOMS OF SPRAY POISONING. 
Tlio arsenic is a slow-acting poison, those 
bees that secured a full toxic dose may 
fail to return to the apiary. Countless 
dead bees have been noticed between the 
orchards and the apiary. Especially about 
their watering places do the bees congre¬ 
gate, visiting moist ground, a brook or a 
ditch, as tho in an endeavor to quench an 
unnatural thirst. Many come back to their 
homes laden with pollen and poisoned hon¬ 
ey, but drop fagged out, instinctively re¬ 
maining outside to die. 
Those that receive poison close by may 
deposit their load in the combs before be¬ 
coming affected, and bring death to the 
nurses and the brood. Few of the poisoned 
bees die within the hive and are carried 
out. Such is the remarkable instinct among 
bees, where the family comes before the in¬ 
dividual, that, when the bees reach the 
stage of poisoning characterized by a 
diarrhoea, they crawl forth even thru the 
night to void the poison outside of their 
home. 
On the following morning the field 
workers sally briskly forth, but because the 
poison in their system has paralyzed the 
wings their attempt at flight results in fail¬ 
ure. Down they drop from the alighting- 
board—usually never to rise again. At first 
excited and nervous they scurry about, 
climbing up weeds and grass, clustering on 
the outside of the hive, which because of the 
diarrhoea afflicting them they spot profuse¬ 
ly. With wings quivering they jump along, 
trying to fly a few inches at a time, gradu¬ 
ally getting farther and farther away from 
the hive. In a few minutes a stupor over¬ 
comes them; they have less and less con¬ 
trol over their movement; they are barely 
able to crawl; they fall over on their sides; 
some spin on their backs; they clutch con¬ 
vulsively with their legs; their tongues be¬ 
come extended full length. As the paraly¬ 
sis becomes complete they quiet down, ac¬ 
cumulating in depressions of the ground 20 
or 30 feet from the apiary by handfuls or 
even by literal quarts. Their mission in 
life is over, altho unfulfilled. 
As the sun warms up, some of these af¬ 
flicted in less degree revive sufficiently to 
fly or crawl away from the vicinity of the 
hives. Such bees probably never com¬ 
pletely recover. It is doubtful if they ever 
return, for we have noticed that other in¬ 
sects once stricken with arsenic become un¬ 
able to digest food, and tho they may lin¬ 
ger on for days and even weeks finally die 
of starvation, if not of poisoning. 
The poisoned honey brought into the 
hives kills the nurses and young bees. 
Drones and queens are also affected; one 
observer reporting, however, that in some 
colonies everything was killed but the 
queens, so that he had a dozen lone queens 
surviving. The brood in all stages is de¬ 
stroyed. Sometimes only unhatched eggs 
remain after the plague has swept thru, 
the helpless new brood appearing but to 
perish unattended. In case of incomplete 
destruction of the colony, poisoned honey 
is stored away to be drawn on later, when 
symptoms of arsenic poisoning reappear. 
Such after-effects are common when bees 
are removed from the orchard region. Thus 
it is also that bees may show symptoms of 
poisoning early in the spring before the 
spray season opens. 
FINANCIAL LOSS TO BEEKEEPERS FROM SPRAY 
POISONING OF BEES. 
Questionnaires sent in recent years 
to beekeepers in the fruit-growing dis¬ 
tricts of Washington reveal the widespread 
and serious nature of spray poisoning. 
By tens of thousands colonies of bees 
are being so depleted as to become non¬ 
productive, and by thousands colonies of 
bees are being completely wiped out. The 
money loss for a single season has been 
computed to be more than $50,000. 
Aside from financial considerations 
there enters the question of fair play and 
moral and legal rights. Why should one 
group of people be permitted to put poison 
in the path of so industrious a benefactor 
of humanity as the honeybee? When it is 
further realized that bees are all-important 
to fruit-growing the question becomes 
even more pertinent, for it becomes sui¬ 
cidal to best orchard interests to drive 
away the honeybee and to destroy year 
after year the native insect pollenizers. 
To avoid actual extermination beekeep¬ 
ers are forsaking the orchard districts. It 
