Metadata: Proceedings of the South & East African combined agricultural, cotton, entomological and mycological conference held at Nairobi, August, 1926

PART IV. 5 
The CHAIRMAN (Mr. Fuller), on behalf of the other delegates 
in the Section, thanked Mr. Kirkpatrick for, and congratulated him on, 
his instructive paper. He was impressed by the remarks in regard to 
the control of the ant, as in South Africa they were rapidly coming to 
the conclusion that the problem of the ant is the one which should be 
tackled. 
In regard to predatory enemies, he was surprised that no mention 
was made of the Cetonid. He had always thought that further 
information in regard to this insect might produce good results. He 
also noticed that no mention had been made of Termites in connection 
with the destruction of coffee trees, and would be glad to know if such 
destruction had been observed. 
Mr. TRENCH stated that in Kenya, Termites do attack Grevillea 
robusta in dry districts, but he had never seen them attack live coffee 
plants. 
Mr. ANDERSON stated that on coffee plantations, where 
Grevillea robusta and coffee grow together, the Grevillea is attacked 
but the coffee very rarely. 
Mr. KIRKPATRICK, in reply to Mr. Hargreaves, stated that he 
had not so far taken any soil samples of the areas infested with Mealy 
Bug but that he thought that there might be some correlation between 
soil and the presence of the ant; and he hoped that the Chemist would 
be able to help in investigating the matter. 
Mr. HARDENBERG had recently been looking up records and 
comparing lists of food plants of various Coccinellide, and had found 
many wrong determinations; and he would ask all Entomologists to 
collect data and material in respect of this particular family, in both 
the adult and immature stages, and to forward these to him. He 
had found Coccinellids poorly represented in collections, particularly 
the smaller varieties. In regard to the relation between Coccinellids 
and Pheidole ants, it had been said that the latter prey on the 
former; on the other hand, Mr. Van der Merwe is reported to have 
found the larvee of the former living in the nests of the latter. This 
appeared to be strange, as from these conflicting reports they seemed in 
some way to prey on one another. 
Mr. KIRKPATRICK, in reply to Mr. Hargreaves, stated that he 
had tried tanglefoot and that it was effective to some extent, as far as 
the ant was concerned, but that many beneficial ladybirds were 
trapped; also, it rapidly got coated over with dust and thus became 
useless. In regard to baits, he had tried many but had invariably 
found that, after a few of the ants had been killed, the remainder were 
too wary to take the bait. 
The CHAIRMAN (Mr. Fuller) agreed with Mr. Kirkpatrick's 
experience—that no success had so far attended the attempts to 
control this ant by baits or traps. 
Mr. WILKINSON, in reply to Mr. Fuller, stated that there was 
no doubt that the spray used in Kenya was very effective against the 
Mealy Bug, and in cases where the clusters of the Mealy Bug were 
not thick it undoubtedly killed most of them but it had, at the same 
time, the effect of killing the predatory insects, and, in the long run, 
possibly did more harm than good. 
Mr. TRENCH stated that they had found that fields infested with 
Mealy Bug and cleared up by spraying became worse durine the next 
19:
	        
Waiting...

Note to user

Dear user,

In response to current developments in the web technology used by the Goobi viewer, the software no longer supports your browser.

Please use one of the following browsers to display this page correctly.

Thank you.