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these States areé _sverped with’ orders, nany of them having turned down 
more orders than’ they normally fill. ‘Because of cold weather, the 
season has been backward and queens in particular are in great demand. 
Doctor Whitcomb emphasizes the necessity for the buyers of package 
bees having a better spprgciatson of the conditions under which pro- 
ducers of “Gabor bees and queens have to work. “The buyer shoukd 
always give the shipper a certain number of days leeway in filling 
orders, in order that he may select the best time for making up pack- 
aces. If a shipper is compelled to fill orders on a certain.day and 
that day happens to be cloudy and rainy, the field bees will.all be 
in the hive and the buyer will get nore old bees than if the shipper 
had ‘been petmitted to wait until the weather cleared, when the hive 
would pas contained a larg er proportion of young bees.. 
The season at Somerset, Md., is from 6 to 8 weeks behind normal. 
Winter conditions continued practically into March, when queen-rearing 
operations ordinarily start. However, drones and pollen have been 
abundant, although perhaps the supply of early nectar has been some~ 
what below normal. 
W. J. Nolan of the Somerset, Md., laboratory accompanied D. L,. 
n Dine and B. A, Porter, of the Division of Fruit Insects; to the 
beta ages Experiment Farm at Kearneysville, W. Va., where cooperative 
work is in progress on the use of organic sprays for codling moth cone 
trol, This is a PWA project. Later, Geo. BH, Marvin, of the Somerset 
laboratory, made pollination counts in the experimental orchard in. — 
which bees were placed, using trees in other commercial orchards in 
the vicinity as checks, 
Jas. I, Hambleton, Somerset, conferred with J, P, Parrott and 
Donald Collins, of the New York State Agricultural Experiment Station, 
Geneva, N, Y,, relative to pollination work in the orchards equipped — 
‘ with light traps, another PWA project in which the Division of Fruit © 
Insects is cooperating. It was planned to collect pollination data 
in the same manner as was used in the Kearneysville, W. Va., area, 
Three samples of brood comb submitted by beekeepers in North 
Caroliga to the Bee Culture Laboratory have been diagnosed as contain-~ 
ine brood infected with parefoulbrood, a few cases of which have been 
noted in North Carolina in previous years. The 3 cases this year, 
however, all came from the same county, indicating that the disease 
may be rather serious. The matter has been reported to the State En—— 
tomologist,. 
IDENTIFICATION AND CLASSIFICATION OF INSECTS 
A large series of specimens of the curculionid genus ‘Antifarhi mus 
has been taken recently from the seeds of a South African. cycad, Ence- 
phalartos sp., and has been identified by L. L. Buchanan, The weevil 
is said to be an agent in the pollination of the flowers of several — 
species of cycads. Systematically, Antliarhinus is interesting because 
