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BEE CULTURE INVESTIGATIONS 
James I. Hambleton, Apiculturist,. in’Charge 
_ On May 19 Dwight K. Grady, Secretary of the Dried Fruit Associa- 
tion of California, exporters of honey, met with R. R. Pailthorp and 
H. J. Clay, of the Bureau of Agricultural Economics, and Jas. I. Hamble- 
ton, of the Division of Bee Culture Investigations, to discuss certa‘n 
proposed changes in the color divisions of the United States grades for 
honey. The general outcome of the conference was that changes in thk3 
present grades are neither needed nor particularly desirable at this time. 
3 Jas. I. Hambleton was present by invitation at the oral examina-— 
tion, on May 28, of Lloyd M. Bertholf for the degree of Doctor of Philos— 
ophy in zoology at the Johns Hopkins University. Mr. Bertholf has held 
a temporary appointment at the Bee Culture Laboratory during the last 
few summers. The major problem for his degree work was the response of 
the honeybee to light. While at the university Mr. Hambleton conferred 
with Dr. A. H. Pfund concerning improvements in the Pfund honey grader, 
which was adopted in 1925 as the official color grader of the United 
States Department of Agriculture. Mr. Hambleton also conferred with Dr. 
Raymond Pearl about the biometrical studies now being made at the Bee 
Culture Laboratory. 
__At the Washington Club, on May 29, Jas. I, Hambleton gave an 
illustrated talk on the life and habits of the honeybee. 
 _—s iJ«. E. Eckert, of the Intermountain Bee Culture Field Laboratory, 
Laramie, Wyo., has just returned from a trip to Lander, Wyo., and From- 
berg, Mont., where the laboratory has established temporary experimental 
apiaries. He reports that winter losses are somewhat above the average. 
-_£. L. Sechrist, of this office, and R. S. Kifer, of the Bureau 
of Agricultural Economics, who are now making a survey of the cost of 
honey production and a survey of methods of management in the Inter- 
mountain States, report that the beekeepers in those States are giving 
them fine cooperation in securing data. 
D. H. Hillman, State Inspector of Apiaries for _Utah, one of the 
cooperators with Messrs. Sechrist and Kifer, and who was assisting in 
studies on the cost of noney production, recently fell while doing inspec. 
tion work and was severely injured. 
On May 19 Carlton E. Burnside went to Leesburg, Va., to examine 
several apiaries where abnormal death of adult bees had been reported. 
