Many organic insecticides have been tested against bees in the laboratory and in the field. In the laboratory most of them have been found to be toxic as stomach poisons, by contact, or both. Some have been classified as to their relative effect on bees when. applied to flowering plants, as follows: May be used with safety; toxaphene, methoxychlor, sulfur. Safety questionable, experience variable DDT, chlordane. Unsafe BHC, lindane, aldrin. Very destructive parathion, dieldrin, arsenicals.

The organic insecticides tested generally can be used safely on plants not in flower. With one exception, fields treated while they are in flower are safe for bees within 48 hours after an application. Fields treated with dieldrin are not safe for bees for a whole week. Insecticides applied during the hours bees are visiting the field are much more damaging than those applied at night when no bees are present. Insecticides that kill more than 10 percent of bee visitors to the field are considered unsafe for use on plants while they are in flower.

Beekeepers have experimented with various means of resolving the problem of bee poisoning. When it was confined to the fruit-producing areas, legislation was sponsored to prohibit the spraying of fruit trees in bloom. Such laws were passed by Ontario in 1892, Vermont in 1896, New York in 1898, Michigan in 1905, Nebraska and Colorado in 1913, Kentucky in 1915, Utah in 1919, and Prince Edward Island, Canada, in 1920. The laws provided no special enforcement agency and low penalties and soon proved they were not the solution.

LOSSES because of insecticides spread by airplane brought some lawsuits, several of which resulted in judgments in favor of the beekeeper. The right to own bees as personal property has been recognized. The law will protect bees as it will any other form of property. The principle has been sustained that a person may not use his property in such a manner that damage to his neighbor is a foreseeable result. The principle has been recognized that the dusting of growing crops to prevent the inroads of insects is frequently necessary and a legitimate operation, but it must be conducted at a time and manner so as not to endanger other legitimate industries, such as apiculture.

In California, where airplane dusting affects several industries and the county agricultural commissioners are organized for thorough enforcement, county ordinances are used. The ordinances require the pest-control operators to obtain permits and to operate under strict conditions set up by the commissioners. Although burdensome to operator and commissioner, the method has reduced the poisoning of bees, but only because of the close supervision made possible by the California system of enforcing agricultural statutes.

A community approach was made in Arizona. In 1945 a survey revealed that an estimated 10,000 colonies were killed as a result of dusting programs. In 1946 leaders of the insecticide trade and the operators of airplane dusters reached an agreement whereby the sale and use of an arsenical as an insecticide was practically discontinued and DDT or other materials were substituted. As a result, in the following 5 years, severe losses from bee poisoning were largely eliminated, relations improved, and better crops were produced.

In Millard County, Utah, beekeepers suffered honey-crop failures in 1946 because alfalfa-seed crops were dusted with DDT while they were in full bloom. Research workers had developed a program of bud-stage dusting, which adequately controlled lygus bugs. Growers had difficulty estimating lygus bug populations on their fields, and so they were also dusting alfalfa in the bloom stages, with consequent danger to honey bees. To improve the situation, the county supervisors and the growers agreed to finance jointly the services of an entomologist. His duties were to make surveys of insect populations and recommend control measures to the growers, giving due consideration to the protection of bees. The savings in insecticides his advice made possible exceeded his salary and expenses, and damage to beekeeping was practically eliminated.

As long as insecticides are used, bee poisoning probably will continue to be a problem. Although the bee industry is still absorbing greater losses from insecticide poisoning than it should, there is a growing spirit of cooperation between growers and beekeepers. In that lies the best chance of solution.

FRANK E. TODD is apiculturist in charge of the Southwestern States Bee Culture Laboratory of the Department of Agriculture in Tucson, Ariz.

S. E. McGREGOR, apiculturist with the division of f bee culture of the Bureau of Entomology and Plant Quarantine, has been in bee work since 1925 in Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, New York, Wisconsin, and Arizona.

The drone fly closely mimics the honey bee in color, size, and actions.