December, ’23] 
doane: bees vs. spraying 
527 
BEES VS. SPRAYING 
By R. W. Doane, Stanford University 
Much has been said and much written on the subject of bees being 
poisoned when near-by trees were sprayed while in blossom. Most of 
these complaints come from the bee-men, themselves, and investigations 
have sometimes shown that the death of the bees was due to other 
causes. Several articles written by entomologists and others have, 
when analyzed, been found to be based entirely on reports made by 
beekeepers. But Bulletin 247 of the Purdue University Agricultural 
Experiment Station, published in 1920, contains an interesting account 
of very definite experiments conducted by W. A. Price, to determine 
whether the bees could be affected in this way and to determine the 
amount of arsenic necessary to kill a bee. 
Because the results he obtained in these experiments were so very 
different from a series that I conducted about the same time and in 
somewhat the same way, it may be of some interest to record the re¬ 
sults of my observations. 
On April 15, 1919, I sprayed an apple tree that was almost in full 
bloom with arsenate of lead, using 3 lbs. of the arsenate of lead to 50 
gals, of water and using 8 gallons of this spray to the tree. The 
spray was applied with a pressure of from 150 to 200 lbs., especial 
effort being made to fill the calyx cups as far as possible. The tree was. 
then covered with a cabinet made of a light wood frame that was 
covered with a good quality of gauze. In order that there might be 
sufficient room on each side of the tree the cover was made 18 x 18 x 16 
ft. high. The cloth, while fairly firm was light enough so that the 
activities of the bees inclosed therein, would not be interfered with. 
On April 17, in the evening, a moderately strong colony of bees was 
placed beside the tree under the cover. On the morning of April 18, 2 
gallons more of the spray was applied to the tree. This time the spray 
was applied as a very fine mist, the leaves and petals being well covered 
in this way. The screen that closed the hive was then removed and the 
bees were allowed to fly around inside the cover. Within a short time 
some of them were visiting the blossoms, apparently feeding; before 
noon scores of them were feeding freely. A number of the bees flew 
directly to the top of the cabinet and tried to escape and during the 
whole course of the experiment some bees were to be seen along the 
upper corners trying to get out. On the morning of the 19th the bees 
that had remained outside of the hive over night were chilled and not 
able to fly. Some of them had dropped to the ground and were crawling 
