Insect Enemies And Their Control (1962)

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This educational film introduces the work of **entomologists** and shows how studying insect life cycles and behavior helps people manage the small but destructive share of insects that threaten crops, health, animals, and property. After noting beneficial insects (fruit flies for genetics research, bees for pollination, scavengers that break down waste), it surveys major pests and the control methods used against them: the **European corn borer** (managed through altered planting dates, resistant corn varieties, and insecticides), the **codling moth** in apples (orchard sanitation such as burning infested debris plus repeated spraying), and the **boll weevil** in cotton (including aerial insecticide dusting). The film then broadens into **integrated control**, contrasting chemicals tailored to chewing vs. sucking insects with natural controls such as birds and predatory/parasitoid insects (a parasitic wasp attacking a caterpillar, and lady beetles released to reduce cottony cushion scale in citrus groves). It also covers public-health and household pests—the **housefly** and **mosquitoes** (sanitation, screening, and larval control on standing water, including malaria-carrying Anopheles), **clothes moths** (dry cleaning and moth crystals), **termites** (soil treatments forming a toxic barrier), and **elm bark beetles** that spread Dutch elm disease (removing and burning infected trees). The film closes by framing pest control as a continuous, evolving “war,” emphasizing that everyone benefits from coordinated prevention and control strategies.