Vol. XII 



JUNE 1902 



No. 6 



HAWAII. 



A BEE-KEEPEK SUBSCRTBER WRITES ENTER- 

 TAININGLY OF THE APICLLTUEAL SIT- 

 UATION IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. 



(By H. H. Smyth.) 



ON the island of Oahu, the greater 

 part of the honey is produced. 

 There are two large corpora- 

 tions there; one is incorporated for 

 $65,000 paid up capital, with a bee priv- 

 ilege of 75.000 acres. They make a large 

 amount of honey and ship mostly to 

 London. The other is not quite so 

 large, but they make and handle a lot. 

 There are quite a number of persons, 

 both white and Japanese, also in the 

 business. The bees are imported Ital- 

 ians and of course, hybrids, as well. 

 The wild bee (of which there are a 

 large quantity on the islands) are the 

 black or German brown bee. 



Our honey source, that is, the best 

 quality (light amber,) comes from the 

 kauvi or algeroba, which blooms more 

 or less nine months in the year and the 

 honey is fine flavored. There are also 

 a great many weeds and much lantana. 

 which gives a dark honey at certain 

 seasons. 



On Hawaii, 150 miles, a little south 

 of east, from Oahu, the principal honey 

 district is, Kona. situated on the south- 

 eastern or lee side of the island, shelt- 

 ered from the strong northeast trades, 

 but having a cool land breeze at night, 

 while during the daytime the breeze 

 comes from the sea. 



Close to the beach is the algeroba or 



kawi, and up at an altitude of, say, 800 

 to 900 feet, they have some sumac, 

 weeds and lantana, miles of it — so thick 

 you cannot pass through it, and cactus. 



The honey flow up ("mauka," as we 

 say) or at that elevation is very un- 

 certain and the honey is dark. In fact, 

 I might say, the only real source of 

 honey is kawi, there is some from cof- 

 fee blossom, but the flow is so short 

 that it is hardly worth mentioning. 



I think there are only two white men 

 on the island who are in the business 

 for money, Mr. Gordon Glore, at Na- 

 poopoo and myself. 



I keep my bees on L frames and in 

 8-frame hives. The frames (Hoffman) 

 we import from the states and the hives 

 we make by hand of 7-8 redwood. Mr. 

 Glore makes his own frames and hives. 

 He adopts the Heddon plan. There are 

 a lot of Japs in the business and they 

 make lo-frame hives out of anything 

 that comes along, from a coal-oil box 

 ot a 2-inch plank, and also use Hof- 

 fman frames. 



The Japs thought all they had to do 

 was to get a hive of bees, put a su- 

 per on. and when the super was full 

 cut the honey out and squeeze out by 

 hand, then sit down and eat and smoke 

 till the super was full again; but the 

 most of them found to their sorrow 

 that that was a loosing game: and now 

 there are only a few who have stayed 

 with it and got extractors, etc. I know 

 of two who run 200 colonies and un- 

 derstand the business quite well; al- 

 though one cannot impress upon them 

 the necessity of getting good queens, 

 any queen is good enough for them. 



Last year I imported three queens 



