304 



American Vee Journal 



September, 1916. 



honey are also noteworthy. Out of a 

 total production reported of 2,400,000 

 pounds, in round figures, 1,510,000 was 

 bulk comb honey, 823,000 extracted 

 honey, and less than 76,000 pounds sec- 

 tion honey, indicating the enormous 

 proportion of bulk comb honey pro- 

 duced. 



The college has at present no apiary 

 on the grounds. This is a deficiency 

 that ought to be supplied, in order to 

 give the students of apiculture ample 

 opportunities to study and experiment. 

 Apiculture in Texas is too important 

 not to give it all the attention possible. 

 Many spots of that immense State have 

 no resources as valuable as honey pro- 

 duction. The honey of these districts 

 is of good quality and sells readily. 

 They are just beginning to find out the 

 possibilities of the industry. They have 

 a capable, young and energetic ento- 

 mologist at the head of this department 

 and will doubtless give him good back- 

 ing. The time has come for full recog- 

 nition of beekeeping even in States of 

 lesser production. 



There is no winter problem in Texas ; 

 the worst features being spring dwind- 

 ling of colonies and foulbrood. The 

 former may be warded off by attention 

 and the supplying of artificial pollen 

 when there is a dearth of flowers. The 

 latter has spent its force and the sys- 

 tem of inspection employed will sooner 

 or later put it under full control, when 

 sufficiently sustained by legislation. In 

 the olden days such scourges were 

 like prairie fires and died only for want 

 of fuel, after having swept the land. 

 Nowadays they are stopped by man's 

 ingenuity and persistence. 



The acting professor of entomology 

 is S. W. Bilsiiig, and Mr. B.Youngblood 

 is director of the experiment station. 

 We were taken over the Agricultural 

 grounds in his automobile, and I no- 

 ticed the peculiar auto passages by the 

 side of the farm gates. They are built 

 like the cattle guards of railroad cross- 

 ings. This does away with the neces- 

 sity of opening gates, except when 

 horses are used. It saves time. 



I said we were the guests of the col- 

 lege. Before leaving, I must acknowl- 

 edge the courtesies and kindness of 

 Mr. Sbisa, supervisor of the subsistence 

 department, and of his kind wife, who 

 looked after our welfare. Mr. Sbisa, 

 a foreigner by birth, has occupied his 

 present position for 38 years out of the 

 39 of the college's existence. His motto 

 is "economy." He does not believe in 

 the too common habit of wastefulness, 

 but knows how to provide abundance 

 through judicious saving. A visit 

 through his department which ended 

 our stay showed us that the " high cost 

 of living" is easily lessened by good 

 management. The total cost of board 

 and rooms is less than $180 per year 

 for each student. 



After 18 days in the Lone Star Siate 

 we returned home March 23, to find 

 ice still ruling a good part of Illinois. 



A Letter from Hawaii 



BY \V. L PORTER. 



BEE CULTURE in Hawaii interests 

 me because this tropical country 

 is quite different from our North 

 Temperate Zone. Since the beginning 

 of the European war, nearly all the 



honey produced here has been shipped 

 to the States and sold at very low 

 prices. The readers of the American 

 Bee Journal maybe interested in learn- 

 ing more about it. 



We have a daughter who has been 

 living in Honolulu for some time. Wife 

 and I came to visit her last winter. We 

 left our home in Caldwell, Idaho, on 

 Nov. 4, and spent some time at the San 

 Francisco Fair. We sailed for Hawaii 

 on Nov. 9, making the trip in six days. 

 The sea was quite rough when we left 

 the harbor, but Mrs. Porter and I 

 seemed to be good sailors, and the 

 passage was a great pleasure. 



It is difficult to express the beauty of 

 scene and climate of these islands, 

 where there is but little change of tem- 

 perature the year around, no excessive 

 heat, with the thermometer rarely be- 

 low 60 degrees. 



Through the kindness of Mr. West- 

 gate, superintendent of the Experiment 

 Station, I was handed the reports con- 

 cerning beekeeping in the islands. 

 There are about 20,000 colonies, and 

 the output of honey is around 1000 

 tons, or an average of 100 pounds per 

 colony. But it is a very low grade of 

 honey. A portion of it is honeydew 

 gathered from the sugar cane, mixed 

 more or less with nectar from the 

 flowers. The only good table honey is 

 from localities where the algarroba 

 tree is abundant and no sugar cane is 

 produced. This tree is somewhat 

 shaped like our honey locust. But the 

 pods are more like bean pods. It was 

 introduced from Australia in 1838 by a 

 Catholic priest, and the original tree 

 is still standing on the corner of the 

 Mission grounds. It is now the prin- 

 cipal forest timber of the islands, for it 

 grows rapidly. It blooms twice a year, 

 in May, and again in the fall. The pods 

 contain a sweet gummy substance. 

 They are picked by the natives and the 

 Japs, and sold for about $8 per ton to 

 make algarroba meal, which is used as 

 feed for all kinds of stock. Its honey 

 is white, like alfalfa honey and of mild 

 flavor. When it is free from mixture 



with honeydew it makes good table 

 honey. 



Most of the other honey-producing 

 plants bloom in the spring, but there 

 are flowers in greater or less number 

 the year around. 



The honeydew is an aphis production 

 similar to that of the United States. 



They have no wintering problem here 

 and it looks like a bee-paradise, but 

 when we come to look into the situa- 

 tion very few people will be tempted to 

 make the change. The greatest draw- 

 back is the exceedingly low quality of 

 the honey and the poor price it brings. 

 Mr. Longley, superintendent of the 

 Island Marketing Association, informed 

 me that he had on his hands a quantity 

 of that honey which he is willing to sell 

 at 1 U cents per pound, and algarroba 

 honey at 2% cents. They used to ship 

 most of it to Germany, where it was 

 used for baking. They then realized 

 about 4 cents per pound. 



The freight to Seattle or San Fran- 

 cisco is $400 per ton, so that this 

 honey on our coast is worth about $29 

 per ton. If it were not of such poor 

 quality, we would face a hard proposi- 

 tion to compete against it. 



Mr. E. C. Smith superintendent of 

 the Garden Island Bee Co , is one of 

 the best posted beekeepers on the 

 island. I went to visit him, but he had 

 just sailed for Australia, so I could not 

 meet him. Miss Brown, his wife's sis- 

 ter, had the business in charge. She 

 kindly entertained us and showed us 

 things of interest. She has charge of 

 the queen-rearing for 3000 colonies. 

 After a thorough inspection of the col- 

 onies is made, the most of the work is 

 performed by Japanese. 



Since the honey market is so low, 

 they aim to produce a large amount of 

 beeswax. ^Ir. Smith is conducting ex- 

 periments in this matter, to convert 

 honey into wax by feeding it back. 

 The experiments have not been carried 

 far enough to obtain anything definite 

 on this interesting subject. 



In extracting the honey, they aim to 

 get as much wax as possible. They 



CADETS IN REVIEW AT THE AGRICULTURAL AND MECHANICAL COLLEGE 



OF TEXAS 



