a ke 
cold storage for about 18 months and had been kept dormant and viable 
under these conditions throughout one complete season, it was thought 
that this note might be of some interest." 
Wise cockroaches spurn poisoned food.—-Reporting on studies on 
the toxicity of a series of homologs of Paris green, M. C. Swingle, Ta-— 
koma Park, says: "A series of experiments have been tried with the Amer-— 
ican roach but with little practical result. * * * It is hard Tomiie 
roaches (by poisoning) in less than two weeks, as they refuse to eat 
poisoned focd. At the end of that time it is a question of starvation 
or poisoning, with little possibility of determining which. Various 
schemes have been tried to feed roaches sufficient poison to produce 
mortality in a reasonable length of time but these have not been success— 
ful. It is a rather singular fact that roaches would probably starve 
before eating poisoned food, but will eat unbelievable quantities of 
poison if it is placed on their feet or antennas. The tendoncyaas 
clean these appendages is apparently greater than their native judg- 
ment. This method has been tried with .these insects but it is very 
hard to feed quantitative amounts of the poisons (in this way)." 
BEE CULTURE 
Efficiency of insect pollenizers compared.--"Especially notice— 
able " reports E. L. Sechrist, Davis, Calif., "was the large number of 
ants feeding on nectar and pollen. They were on petals, leaves, buds, 
and everywhere about the trees, continually. Thrips were conspicuously 
absent this year. One of the outstanding things was the presence of 
large numbers of blowflies. This is not unusual but was unusually strik- 
ing. Some of the counts indicate that there were literally thousands of 
these visiting blossoms and other parts of trees in any area. Honeybees 
were by all odds the most efficient pollenizers under observation, their 
activity being perfect for this important function. In watching indivi- 
dual bees, this pollenizing activity was clearly brought out, as many 
as 50 blossoms (pear) being visited systematically by an individual bee 
going from one tree to another. One bee working on dandelion was obser- 
ved laboriously collecting pollen from blossom after blossom for a per-— 
iod of one hour. An important thing in contrast between the activity 
of bees and blowflies is that bees confine their visits to the blos-— 
soms. Nothing could be more systematic than the honeybee in these ac— 
tivities. Blowflies were next in abundance to honeybees, particularly 
in the Caldwell pear orchards. The activity of these insects appears 
to be perfectly aimless. They nervously flit about, touching trunk, 
branch, twig, leaf, or blossom, whichever is in front of them. They 
drift back and forth, at times lazily resting in the sun for many min- 
utes. 
