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MONTHLY LETTER OF THE BUREAU OF ENTOMOLOGY RES E!Y =P 
UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE NOV ¢ 7 1982 « 
VU. &. Deparment of Agwioulture 
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Number 221 Activities for August September, 1932 
(Not for Publication) 
BEE CULTURE 
False hellebore believed to be poisonous to bees.--Geo. H. Vansell 
and Wm. G. Watkins, of the Davis, Calif., laboratory, have been making 
investigations of plants that might be poisonous to bees. They report 
that "At Pyramid, Calif., bees were dying rapidly. Dying bees at one 
hive were counted and showed an accumulation of 34 dead young adult bees 
in 40 minutes. Two days later, on the return trip, another count was 
made and 259 dead bees were collected from this hive. All colonies were 
affected. Upon opening the hives, bees would be seen clinging to the 
comb, as if the claws were somewhat attached; at the least jar these bees 
would fall to the bottom of the hive in the characteristic curled posi- 
tion assumed when one bee has been stung by another. The bees were work- 
ing largely upward to higher elevations to the north. Later Watkins 
found many acres of Veratrum californicum in bloom on the flats 1,000 
feet above the apiary. On these plants were found not only dead and dy- 
ing bees but great numbers of other insects, Bees not yet dead were 
found clinging to the blossoms by the fore claws, and dropping when 
slightly jarred. The evidence indicates that this plant is responsible 
for the poisoning. As its blossoming time passed, the unusual death of 
bees ceased." 
FRUIT AND SHADE TREE INSECTS 
Oriental fruit moth travels 9,900 feet.--W. P. Yetter and L, F. 
Steiner, who are conducting bait-trap experimental work with the orien- 
tal fruit moth, (Grapholitha molesta Busck) at Cornelia, Ga., have report— 
ed migration records of three marked moths that traveled more than one 
and one~half miles each, the exact distance being 9,900 feet, 9,400 feet, 
and 9,250 feet, respectively. The longest distance was traveled by a 
female moth. After capture she was confined in an oviposition jar with 
peach twigs and deposited 14 eggs before becoming too weak to deposit 
any more. Upon dissection she was found to contain 21 mature eggs and 
78 immature ones. The three flights were remarkable not only for dis- 
tance but because they were made across or against the wind from one 
baited orchard to another, and apparently over more than a mile and a 
quarter of unbaited peach and apple orchards. 

Survey of parasites of oriental fruit moth in twigs .--H. W. Allen, 
if 
Earl Lott, and H. C. Shaner, of the Moorestown, N. J., laboratory, have 

