It developed from a section of the Department of Agriculture which had been working on entomological researches and allied issues relating to insects.
On Friday, May 18, 1866, Mr. O'Neill requested an appropriation from the Congress of the United States to maintain the organization's publication Practical Entomologist.
The Bureau of Entomology conducted researches into methods which could reduce the spread and the frequency of occurrence of insect pests.
Investigations of bee diseases, the greatest handicap with which the beekeeper has to had to deal, resulted in a number of discoveries of great importance.
[2] A quarantine against insect pests and diseases from abroad was established and maintained, inspectors having been stationed at every port of entry by land and sea.
The investigational and control work was carried on by the Federal government through the Bureau of Entomology and the Horticultural and Insecticide and Fungicide Boards.
In November, 1916, the occurrence of the pink bollworm in the Laguna district of Coahuila, Mexico, within 200 miles (322 km) of the Texas border, was discovered, and an embargo was placed upon the importation of Mexican cotton.
Late in the year 1917 the widely distributed European and Asiatic pest Pyrausta nubilalis Hubn., a moth whose larva is a borer, was discovered to have become established in an area approximately of 100 square miles (259 km2) in several counties in eastern Massachusetts, where it caused serious injury to corn and particularly to sweet corn.
The green beetle Popillia japonica was introduced from Japan with nursery stock and became established near Riverton, N. J., where it was discovered in the summer of 1916.