The Asian honeybee, Apis cerana, is one of the major native honeybee species in Asia. The effects of insecticides on honeybees are currently a major concern worldwide, making it important to evaluate the impact of new insecticides on non-targeted beneficial species. This study determined the acute contact toxicity of ethiprole, acephate, and flubendiamide in Japanese A. cerana (A. c. japonica). Based on 48-h contact tests, the LD₅₀ of ethiprole and acephate on A. cerana was 0.0036 and 0.11μg/bee, respectively, while the LD₅₀ of flubendiamide could not be determined from the concentrations tested (i.e. up to 100.0μg/bee). These results provide evidence regarding the susceptibility of A. cerana under laboratory conditions to insecticides commonly used.

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Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute (FFPRI) is collecting information about the study sites of containerized tree seedling planting in all around Japan since 2014. Nowadays, a database system that is based on collected data is constructed, and authorised users in FFPRI can access it on online. Additionally, part of the data is published in the project web site. To accelerate the use of the information, we describe the structure of the database.

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We identified 47 species, 14 families of Collembola from Mt. Joyama, Munakata, Fukuoka. The species composition of Collembola seemed to be representative one at forest environment in Northern Kyushu area. The most dominant species was Folsomia octoculata. Sixteen species was newly recorded from northern and middle area of Kyushu.

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The equilibrium moisture content of wood in Japan is considered to be 15% and is based on weather and experimental data of past years. With the increase of uninhabited weather observation points, weather data has increased over recent years. The objective of this paper was to investigate the recent values of equilibrium moisture content of wood using weather data from 1981 to 1995 for the entire area of Japan. Therefore, contour line maps were used to denote the equilibrium moisture content for the entire year in Japan. The average value of the equilibrium moisture content of Japan was 15%, and the numerical value range was 12-19%. This value did not change when compared with that reported previously. However, the average value of the equilibrium moisture content of wood changed to 13.5-13.7% when compared for the past year the same meteorological stations that had reported previously.

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